Jerome Liebling

In 1949, Jerome Liebling left the established New York art scene for the academe, taking up an influential post as professor of film and photography in the University of Minnesota’s fledgling fine arts program. As he set down roots here, his outsider’s perspective drew him toward people and places–scenes from St. Paul’s slaughterhouses, work-worn faces from the Iron Range, children on the Red Lake Reservation–that few others at the time considered artistic fodder. He also witnessed political history as figures ranging from Walter Mondale to JFK made memorable appearances in Minnesota. Today Liebling lives in Florida, but he visited the Twin Cities recently to celebrate the opening of a retrospective of his work at the Minnesota Center for Photography.

You left New York at a time when it was becoming the world’s art capital. Do you think coming here limited or liberated you as an artist?

I really grew up in Minnesota, whether I knew it or not. The loss of my home and my friends in New York was tough, but I thought Minnesota was very rich, and I really traveled throughout the state to discover what I could.

Your presence here was influential in developing a stronger art community and gallery scene. Were you hoping to recreate some of what you’d experienced on the East Coast?
Well, one of the things going on at the time was the vast expansion of the universities, much of it due to the GI Bill, and the art department at the U of M had just been formed. At that time, I didn’t understand what that meant, but it was a very significant change for young artists. Previous to that, you trained at a conservatory if you were in music or the arts. Suddenly, you could get a respected degree in the arts. So I was part of that change, but I didn’t even know it.

Your body of work includes some very disturbing images. Are you drawn to photographing the dark side of life?
Well, those things are there, and at some point we all have to face them. I like to think my work captures the passion and the pain of life. Passion arises and destroys, nature rises again, and things seem to rejuvenate. You have hope and, unfortunately, a little despair. The wonderful growth that you get from nature–young people, beautiful things growing–is amazing. But then eventually things die. And how we resolve that philosophically, I don’t know.

Have you ever been upset by your subject matter?
The South St. Paul slaughterhouse project was challenging. I started it in 1952, and I’d been in World War II until my discharge in 1945. When I first went down to South St. Paul and went through some slaughterhouses, it was really a challenge to my memory. That’s when I saw the chaos and the blood and the killing, and absorbing that was just as much a part of what I was doing there as simply documenting how these guys worked.

Is there a photo out there that you always wanted to shoot, but never got the chance?
There’s not really a missed opportunity I dwell on, but rather a general desire to keep getting out my camera and working. I’m not really still taking photographs. Well, I do a little bit in the winter. I live in Florida now, and for a long time I’ve done a nature series there.

What was the last photo you took that you were really excited about?
Well, I just wrote an article about the people who came to Florida, and I’ve been working on photos that illustrate the whole migration and culture that has evolved there. All the New York people that I knew, and my mother as well, went down there and became the snowbirds, and it was a long time before I understood the connection between their desire to come to Florida and the natural scene, the tropical flora. I’ve found that flora to be endlessly interesting to photograph–as well as the people, of course.

You’re about to turn eighty-two–is working behind the camera getting difficult?
It does. I don’t seem to have the energy at my age. And there’s also the conflict of digital. I’m not a digital photographer, and very slowly, the materials that I use are disappearing or becoming hard to get. So there’s going to have to be a change there, but I’m postponing that as long as possible.