Description

The first-ever collaboration between Shepard and the estate of legendary photographer Jim Marshall, American Civics, debuts this month! Shepard is interpreting Marshall's iconic photography from the 1960's, including images of Johnny Cash, Cesar Chavez, and Fannie Lee Chaney, with five new works, vividly depicting the humanity behind some of the country's enduring social issues: Voting Rights, Mass Incarceration, Worker's Rights, Gun Culture, and Two Americas. "That one is probably the most intense of the images, if you know the backstory. Fannie Lee Chaney, who was the mother of James Earl Chaney, who was killed along with two white friends while trying to register black people to vote. So you know about it — a lot of people know about it — but this is an intimate portrait of James Earl Chaney's mom the day she found out her son had been killed. There's a sadness and resolve in the image, but there's also a humanity.".