By Matt Hoisch
Among the images in the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art is the close-up shot of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that Time magazine used as the cover of its March on Washington 50th anniversary edition in 2013. Dan Budnik took the photo in the moments just after Dr. King spoke. Image by Matt Hoisch
On Monday, many across the country commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In Telluride, people have the opportunity to dive into Civil Rights history with a collection of photographs by Dan Budnik on display at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art. Former Gallery Director Bärbel Hacke was instrumental in the getting the images to Telluride. KOTO’s Matt Hoisch spoke with Hacke about the collection.
Bärbel Hacke remembers when she drove to Tuscon, Arizona to the home of the photographer Dan Budnik. She and a friend were traveling to look through hundreds of his photos of the civil rights movement and select only 30 or 40 to bring back to the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art.
“I mean that was a truly emotional process to be so close to the history of United States. Civil rights movement, always something what interested me but then—this is really witness of history, and it was an emotional process, yeah. It was not easy I tell you,” says Hacke.
Years later, the gallery has only a fraction of the images that Hacke brought back. Those remaining photos currently hang in a line along the gallery wall. They depict a range of events and people and emotions from throughout the civil rights movement: The 1958 Youth March for Integrated Schools. The 1963 March on Washington. The writer James Baldwin marching alongside the moviestar Marlon Brando.
Hacke walks through the gallery and studies one of the images.
“Mahalia Jackson. Singing at the Lincoln Memorial. And here you see...do we see some white people? Yeah, white and black together. But for me looking at this one, knowing these people are all gone,” she says. “I look at them and see the joy in their faces. They’re smiling. It’s such a lively photograph of something. And seeing Mahalia Jackson only from back, knowing her gospel singing, and this so full of life! But right away, all these people are dead.”
As Malarie Reising Clark, the current Director of the gallery, notes, each image is one of a kind.
“These images from Dan Budnik are created in the dark room and it’s a totally analogue process,” she explains. “So he’s using purely light to create these prints; negative in the enlarger, light sensitive photo paper. And really every print comes out differently because of that process.”
Among the images is the close-up shot of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that Time magazine used as the cover of its March on Washington 50th anniversary edition in 2013. Budnik took the photo in the moments just after Dr. King spoke. For Hacke, the image captures an inarticulable instant.
“You need to look at it. There is nothing to describe!” she says with a laugh.
Bärbel Hacke walks through the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, looking at the remaining Dan Budnik photographs from the collection she brought back to Telluride years ago. Image by Matt Hoisch
Hacke felt compelled to bring the Budnik civil rights photos to Telluride years ago because of her own personal connection to the power of political engagement and activism. She was born in the former East Germany.
“Being born after Second World War you be born with the guilt of what had happened in Germany, and you get raised and very being aware of politics and being political and speaking your opinion and really dig deep,” Hacke says. “So coming here and seeing that not so far ago with segregation—which I never could understand—and still what happens today.”
She feels that racism has many faces, but all are ugly. Seeing these photos, she hopes, can provide a sobering moment for gallery visitors in 2020.
“To hold for a moment still,” she says, “and reflect what happened only 50, 60 years ago and what is still happening today.”
The collection of Dan Budnik’s photos is up in the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art through February 9 and will be up during the February 6 Art Walk.