CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/20/2019

An entire galaxy of romantic whims in 'Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Stages for Being'

"Untitled" (circa 1971) is reproduced from Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Stages for Being, the new release from University of Kentucky Art Museum, which hosted the corresponding exhibition through December of 2018. "There are some people who live lives as facts, and others who live lives as fiction," Duane Michals writes. Meatyard "was a Foto Voyant, a photographer whose imagination floated through the air like a cooling zephyr on a hot August afternoon in Kentucky. Beads of perspiration became pearls on his forehead. A reflection in a window revealed an entire galaxy of romantic whims. He didn't look to see, he saw to feel. Shadows were his reality… It is no surprise that an optician would be a seer."
For more on the show and book, read John Yau's superb review in Hyperallergic.