'Pictures' rivets crowd for hours

Some were uplifting. Some were depressing. Some were shocking, and caused a revolted few to gasp. Jacob Holdt's American Pictures exhibition took its capacity crowd at Meyerson B-1 through a roller-coaster of images and emotions Thursday night. Holdt's intent was to "oppress" the members of his audience by subjecting them to a four-and-a-half-hour, 3,000 picture photographic essay. The exhibition, Holdt's fifth at the University, covered the European traveler's years of "vagabonding" through the U.S., bombarding the audience with scenes of abject underclass poverty, contrasted with some of the most incredible affluence in America. After a seven-minute introduction, the Danish-born photographer turned out the lights and turned on the slide projectors to show the University community "a side of America most Americans don't want to deal with . . . a show of oppression in its most extreme forms, as seen through the eyes of a foreigner." Holdt, by his own account, hitchhiked over 118,000 miles through 48 states, and sold his blood plasma twice a week in order to compile approximately 15,000 pictures of a forgotten part of America. During the course of his travels, Holdt was arrested twice by FBI agents, four times by the Secret Service, infiltrated meetings of the Ku Klux Klan, and spent nights under the same roof as murderers on three separate occasions. Holdt, though, steadfastly maintains that he has "never known a bad American." At 11:30 p.m., roughly half of the audience remained, riveted. After the show, many in the audience were at a loss for words to describe the visceral impact of what they had been watching for the past four and a half hours. Student Employment Services worker Janice Hoggs said she was struck by the "very powerful, unforgettable . . . idea [that ] slavery still exists." College Senior Glenn Yeck said he thought the show was "powerful . . . a lot to absorb all at once." "If you leave with anything, [it is] an awareness that the problem [of poverty] is worse than anyone realized," Yeck said. But students said the education they had received more than made up for the four and a half hours of "oppression." College junior Joe Kim said the show "was riveting . . . I'd see it again."

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