Working with the Dixon Gallery and Gardens and the Blues Foundation, the Center is sponsoring a blues symposium November 2-4, 2000, at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis. The symposium will be in conjunction with the Dixon’s exhibition Visualizing the Blues: Images of the American South, 1862-1999, which will open October 8 and close December 31. The exhibition brings the blues into focus through a collection of classic photographs by world masters and important young artists. The photographs show the life, landscape, ambience, people, and history that gave birth to the blues.

The exhibition explores the historical, cultural, and visual foundations of the blues through photography. It spans the history of photography from the Civil War to contemporary times, bringing together photographs by Margaret Bourke-White, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ralston Crawford, Matthew Brady, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Clarence John Laughlin, Gordon Parks, Andres Serrano, Doris Ulmann, and Eudora Welty, as well as such emerging artists as Jane Rule Burdine, Huger Foot, Birney Imes, and Steve Gardner.

The photographers in the exhibition demonstrate a wide range of photographic techniques, styles, and conceptual thinking. Eudora Welty’s images of her home state of Mississippi in the 1930s and 1940s provide an intimate glimpse into the state that fostered so many blues talents. William Eggleston, a pioneer of color photography who lives in Memphis, is arguably the most well-known living American photographer. Clarence John Laughlin worked in Louisiana in the mid-20th century, taking evocative photographs of decadent plantation architecture and landscapes. Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson came from Europe to the Mississippi Delta to capture the outsider’s perspective on the workings of Southern society.

The hard truths, legendary humor, and depth of spirit of the blues come to life in the photographs in the exhibition, and the symposium will explore the cultural context of these images and ways the blues and photography are intertwined within Southern culture. Participants scheduled to attend include historians Leon Litwack and Bill Malone, discussing the historical origins of the blues, and David Evans, Edward Komara, and John Ruskey discussing the music. Center Director Charles Reagan Wilson and scholar Jon Michael Spencer will explore religious features of Southern culture, while photographers Tom Rankin, Maude Schuyler Clay, and Birney Imes will be among those on a panel discussing their work.

Sessions will also be held on the influence of blues on American culture and on the future of the blues, the latter which will include Howard Stovall, director of the Blues Foundation and a member of the Center’s Advisory Committee. Additional programs include a tour of the National Civil Rights Museum, an evening on Beale Street, and a blues and barbecue dinner at the Dixon. The Center will host a program on Thursday morning, November 2, as part of the symposium, when interested registrants tour north Mississippi and the Delta.

Call Perre Magness (901-761-5250) for more information about the exhibition and Jane Faquin (901-761-5250) to request a program and/or to register for the symposium.