| A seemingly simple picture, Sun and Shade depicts an everyday urban scene.
Two children are playing with toy guns, running in and out of shadows on a
hot summer
day. One is easily visible against the vivid backdrop of a sunlit sidewalk;
the other is barely glimpsed, disappearing into a softly glowing, dark constellation
of cement and stone in a building’s shade. Here Roy DeCarava uses the very
quality of literalness and specificity that a photograph imparts to endow an
innocent scene with metaphoric value, creating an image emblematic of opposition
and struggle. Freezing the exuberance of the children’s play, the artist
suggests a world of isolation, separation, control, and violence. The boys,
motionless across the line dividing black and white, can be envisioned growing
into a world
of barriers beyond their imagining. . . .
:: Paul Roth, Curator of Photography and Media Arts
Corcoran Gallery of Art |
Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from
the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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:: The Curator's Journals Project
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