They say you can’t go home again. But for Chivas Clem, returning to Paris, Texas, sparked a new body of work. Clem moved home over 10 years ago after a stint in New York at Artforum magazine and the American Fine Arts gallery. The quiet environs of his hometown gave him the space for ambitious projects, among them a thoughtful photography series currently on view at the Dallas Contemporary.
“Shirttail Kin” is a layered look at the Southern masculinity of Clem’s native landscape. With a title drawn from a colloquialism that means one’s chosen family, the 61 photographs in the exhibition show the local community of transient men as captured by the artist’s lens.
“I started photographing rednecks I had hired to help me out in the studio,” Clem says of the project, much of which he executed on his iPhone. “It occurred to me no one was really thinking about this group of people. They were like actors without screenplays, all very charismatic and magnetic.”
Although he is portraying (often nude) drifters, addicts and former felons, Clem’s eye is never salacious or superior. Instead, he captures these white, working-class subjects with a tender mien, showing their tattooed bodies lounging, embracing wildflowers or floating in bathwater. As he has shot the same models repeatedly, his subjects have embraced their role in the spotlight.
“My models have a kind of rugged individualism that hearkens back to the archetype of the cowboy,” Clem says. “There’s something to be said about the way they feel seen by me. There’s a connection between us.”
Details
“Shirttail Kin” continues through Jan. 26 at the Dallas Contemporary, 161 Glass St., Dallas. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Free. 214-821-2522. dallascontemporary.org.
