Draped in a shawl and clutching a baby in a blanket, a woman peers over a metal railing at many restless men, women and children on the cramped lower deck of a ship in Alfred Stieglitz’s 1907 photograph “The Steerage.” Stieglitz’s photograph documents the difficulties that lower-class immigrants faced while making transatlantic journeys to America. “The Steerage” is currently on display at the Addison Gallery of American Art as part of its new exhibit “In the Air: Immigration.”
“In the Air,” located in the Museum Learning Center, is a series of small exhibitions that consist of a few objects from the Addison’s permanent collection. The current exhibit, “In the Air: Immigration,” showcases eight photographs and one print that examine the modern issues of immigration in the United States through the lens of historical American artwork.
“We called this series of exhibitions ‘In the Air’ to ask ‘what’s happening?’ and ‘what’s in the air?’ One of the big things that is ‘in the air’ these days is immigration… So it seemed like a good topic for [the Addison] to talk about and also to demonstrate that it’s been a question for a long time and it’s one that artists have taken on in various ways,” said Judith Dolkart, the Mary Stripp & R. Crosby Kemper Director of the Addison Gallery, who curated the exhibit. “[This exhibit] is kind of prompting some thoughts about who is in the country without taking a position on it. Really, it is for students and faculty to think about the question of immigration.”
Also featured in the exhibit is Thomas H. Nast’s 1871 print “The Chinese Question,” which depicts a Chinese man slumped against a wall covered in racial slurs and stereotypes, while Columbia, a female personification of the United States, places a gentle hand on his head. Columbia looks over her shoulder, shooting a hateful glance at a crowd of similarly-dressed white men holding guns, rocks and knives. Behind the threatening assembly stands a tree with a hanging rope and a building labelled “Colored Orphan Asylum” going up in flames.
“In the 19th century, as the slave trade was gradually diminished and prohibited various countries that depended on slavery were looking to other kinds of migrants, increasingly the Chinese… There was a whole question about bringing Chinese immigrants into the United States,” said Dolkart. “This is Columbia, who was a symbol for the United States, protecting the Chinese worker from those who are not welcoming… This is Nast’s take on the kind of xenophobia.”
Among the other pieces in the exhibit is 1943 “Children Asleep on Fire Escape,” by Arthur Fellig, an artist who worked under the pseudonym “Weegee.” The black-and-white photograph documents a startling scene of four sleeping children nestled together on a fire escape. The limbs of other sleeping children wearing threadbare shorts and dresses jut out in the frame of the photo.
“Weegee earned his fame for his images of crime scenes and those who occupied the margins of society. This image of children sleeping on a fire escape provides a sense of the way in which people found relief from their stifling and often tenement quarters,” said Dolkart. “This image was shot on the Lower East Side [of New York, NY.], which was home to many immigrant populations over the 19th and 20th centuries.”
As of now, a close date has not been set for “In the Air: Immigration.”
