©Joe Johnson, Mailbox

I’ve been a fan of Joe Johnson’s work for the past few years. He first submitted work to nice;01, the first annual national juried exhibition we hosted with Midwest Nice Art, a collective I run with my husband, Tim Rickett. While the initial work I saw was in color, I was taken by Joe’s use of images to speak to a domestic nostalgia within my memory. This extends into many of his projects, and we can see it in Sometimes Always Never. The images are personal, speaking to his twin boys growing up, but are free from specificity in place and time. They seep into anyone’s memories, sparking my own childhood experiences. Each image holds evidence of human intrusion, whether in nature or the personal. Joe shares these small moments with us, where we feel we are part of the story.

©Joe Johnson, North Window Fog

Joe Johnson’s works are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, The Center for Creative Photography, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York Artist Book Library among others.  His photographs have been the subject of articles and reviews in Art in America, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Wired Magazine Raw File.  His book Office Hours with Joe Johnson was exhibited as a first book prize shortlist honoree by the Aperture Foundation at Paris Photo.  He holds an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.  The recipient of Center Santa Fe’s Callanan Excellence in Teaching Award, Johnson currently teaches at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

You can follow Joe on Instagram: @j_o_e__j_o_h_n_s_o_n

©Joe Johnson, Train Tracks

Sometimes Always Never

The photographs in Sometimes Always Never were made since the pandemic and most often with my young twin boys in tow.  After a career engaged in highly circumscribed project-oriented work, I left the tripod and my formal rubric at home.  Instead, I favored the small hand camera and black and white film of my early education, making “notes” wherever I happened to be without expectation.  Aside from the turmoil of our common predicament, I set about the task of keeping up a highly local art practice during lockdown in between matters that seemed more pressing. I continued when the world opened again, though it seems none of us have exhaled since.  Reviewing the pictures, I imagine all visible things to be inflected by the chaos of our current moment, divulging previously withheld significance–subjects that are known but in a way that feels less secure.  The boys pop into the mix anonymously as the pictures are made while picking up a birthday cake, getting the mail, soccer practice, visiting relatives.  So, the title is paternal, referencing a convention my father taught me to properly fasten a three-button suit jacket.

©Joe Johnson, Suns

Epiphany Knedler: How did your project come about?

Joe Johnson: I touched on this briefly in the statement, but the conditions for this work were initially imposed by the Covid shutdown.  Many of my previous projects were appointment based. I’d negotiate access to sites, travel, ship big film to color labs and get it back hopefully unscathed.  At the time, doing this again felt ages away.  I had a small camera I never used and a ton of old rolls of film and access to a darkroom so I figured this is what it will be for a bit.

I took the opportunity to be lighter with the kids at home, going on adventures in between teaching remotely and whatever else, ensuring I was making exposures with some kind of intention daily.  When I was able to make a stack of prints, I didn’t want to stop. I’ve tended to make work that looks solved, and this felt like using different muscles.  It was like being back in college when I made pictures ravenously before caring why.  I loved how quiet, casual, and unbuilt the new pictures seemed.  Circumstances led me to make some of my most personal work and yet it’s as if it was made by someone else.

So, the project came about while trying to remain a photographer.  With my critical guardrails softened, apprehending pictures wherever I happened to be, I’ve never been more productive.  So, it’s funny to call this a project, though I suppose we must select, sequence, and organize things thoughtfully into a titled folder.  And “Untitled” is obnoxious, so here we are.

©Joe Johnson, Cardboard

EK: Is there a specific image that is your favorite or particularly meaningful to this series?

JJ: Yes!! Perhaps because it’s an odd duck, but I love how enigmatic the Open Mirror picture is. An elliptical mirror on a chain behind a pane of glass reflecting the sky.  The space is so shallow and withholding while also feeling endless.  An inadvertently ideal commercial display.  I also love that it was made next to the Little Caesars where I was picking up food for a child’s birthday party, proof that it can happen anywhere.  I forget who called pictures like this “little gifts from the world” or “a reward for your attention” but, sappy or not, I feel that.

©Joe Johnson, Cave

EK: Can you tell us about your artistic practice?

JJ: I’ve been a wall photographer for most of my career, using large cameras to make large pictures for an exhibition space.  A few years ago, I published an artist’s book with There There Now called Office Hours.  This was really the first time I’d made anything where the book felt like the appropriate context to receive the project.  While I am exhibiting this new work in much smaller printed form, I’m currently figuring out what an expanded book version could be.  As for my current practice I’m afraid it’s not unlike many other photographers.  Making a ton of pictures, edit for productive ambiguities, then organize them into families of consonant artwork.  With any luck, sometimes they’re pretty good.

©Joe Johnson, Hill and Path

EK: What’s next for you?

JJ: Some of this work will be a part of a solo exhibition this October and November at the E.B. White Gallery at Butler Community College.  I’m from Kansas and I never get to exhibit there so it’s exciting.

©Joe Johnson, Open Mirror

©Joe Johnson, Lawnchair

©Joe Johnson, Traffic Lines

©Joe Johnson, Chalk Board

©Joe Johnson, Footprints

©Joe Johnson, Hairless Cat

©Joe Johnson, West of Town

©Joe Johnson, Front Door

©Joe Johnson, Sometimes Always Never, Weitman Gallery. Washington University, St Louis.

Epiphany Knedler is an interdisciplinary artist + educator exploring the ways we engage with history. She graduated from the University of South Dakota with a BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Political Science and completed her MFA in Studio Art at East Carolina University. She is based in Aberdeen, South Dakota, serving as an Assistant Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Art Department at Northern State University, a Content Editor with LENSCRATCH, and the co-founder and curator of the art collective Midwest Nice Art. Her work has been exhibited in the New York Times, the Guardian, Vermont Center for Photography, Lenscratch, Dek Unu Arts, and awarded through Lensculture, the Lucie Foundation, F-Stop Magazine, and Photolucida Critical Mass.

Follow Epiphany Knedler on Instagram: @epiphanysk