Pigeon Hill: Then + Now | Photographs by Jeffrey A. Wolin

Pigeon Hill: Then + Now
Photographs by Jeffrey A. Wolin. Texts by Keith F. Davis and Jean-Louis Poitevin. Kehrer Verlag, 2016. 96 pp., 58 black & white illustrations, 11.8 x 9.8". 

At the 2017 Filter Photo Festival, we hosted a Conversation with Jeffrey A. Wolin and Catherine Edelman at Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago.  The conversation focused on their long-term relationship as artist and gallerist.  It was fascinating to hear about the development of this project and the successes and challenges along the way.

From 1987 to 1991, Jeffrey Wolin made hundreds of portraits showing residents of Bloomington's, Indiana, housing projects, known as "Pigeon Hill." At the time there was much discussion about the problems of the welfare state with crime, drug abuse, and enduring poverty. Over the past five years Wolin re-photographed over 100 individuals. His focus is on the faces themselves paired with the earlier portraits. One can see the effects of the passing of time and the ways in which experiences in life—good and bad—are written into these open and expressive faces.