Ruin of Tabby (Shell) Construction, St. Mary's, Georgia, 1936 Possibly 1936 - 1974

In 1936, Walker Evans made this photograph, "Ruin of Tabby (Shell) Construction, St. Mary's, Georgia." It's a ruin, and the ruined wall, made of tabby, is heavily textured. You can imagine the labor that went into making that tabby. It would have taken so much effort to raise the structure, but now it is falling apart. It makes you think about the inevitable decay of all things, even stone. I bet Evans was thinking about the Depression and how the landscape was changing. You know, Evans was interested in showing the dignity of everyday life, and maybe this ruin is part of that. It's not beautiful in a traditional way, but it has a kind of stark beauty. The way the light falls on the wall, the contrast between the light and shadow, the way the trees are growing up through the ruins. It reminds me of Robert Smithson’s earthworks. Like Smithson, Evans is interested in entropy and the way nature reclaims what humans have made. Artists are always riffing off each other, trying to find new ways of seeing the world. It's a conversation that never ends.