Jon Lowenstein’s photographs show that photos are not stuck in a single moment, but can reveal a long and deeply felt story. His is a slow process built over decades. The documentary photographer’s themes are social injustice, racism, and systemic violence. With each project he develops deep decades-long ties to the communities that he documents. His work on the situation of undocumented immigrants in the USA has already received a great deal of attention. For two decades Lowenstein has turned the camera lens to his own neighborhood, Chicago’s South Side. Often presented as a hotspot of social issues on the news, he uses his camera to record everyday life and transcend the headlines in collaborative and honest black and white photographs. Supplemented by oral histories, personal texts, and poetry the insight into the South Side deepens even further and fills the pictures with additional life.
JON LOWENSTEIN (*1970, Boston, Massachusetts)—member of the renowned photography agency NOOR—is one of the most intense artists of his generation. His work has already been awarded the John Simon Memorial Guggenheim Fellowship, a World Press Award, the Getty Image Grant and the Lange-Taylor Prize. In addition to the photographic series South Side, The Advocate, his feature film examining the lives of young activists on Chicago’s South Side will be released in 2021.