Gregory Schaffer’s 2009 Seattle photograph Somali Farmers Market conjures up a world-famous photograph made exactly 10 years earlier: Andreas Gursky’s 99 Cent. 99 Cent also depicts a market of cheap, brightly colored goods, but is actually a document of excess prosperity. It spans almost 7 by 11 feet and holds the record for most expensive photograph ever sold at auction—99 Cent went for $3.34 million in 2007. It’s also a digital manipulation that does not attempt to accurately represent what the supermarket looks like (you can make out the trickery easily if you look closely), made and printed using the most advanced technology and machinery at the time. Somali Farmers Market is everything 99 Cent is not.
Schaffer’s picture of the store in South Seattle is not gigantic like 99 Cent; it is 11 by 14 inches (one of 21 photographs that size or slightly larger at Gallery4Culture this month). It was shot on film. The neon palette of 99 Cent comes from wrappers; actual products are unseen. In Somali Farmers Market, there’s a contrast between artificial colors—pieces of construction paper tacked up with handwritten prices: “Carrot 59¢ Lb”—and the natural colors of the naked vegetables and herbs. 99 Cent is a suffocatingly full scene, a belly ready to burst, but Somali Farmers Market is marked by gaps where potential meaning breathes. There’s a shadowy recessed area between half-empty shelves and full boxes in front of them. Above that, there’s the visual relief of two wide swaths of pure white walls between shelves. And the central feature of the picture is an actual hole in the wall where two corners should meet but don’t, where the store owners have put up a sign blocking the hole. The sign is bright red, printed with white letters, and upside down. Though it’s obscured, you can make out that it’s one of those signs you see in 7-Elevens and mom-and-pops that says, “Your Business Is Greatly Appreciated.” It’s a sign of a small enterprise, like a white plastic bag printed with a “Thank you.” These two models of consumption—supermarket versus farmers market—also represent two models of photography, and art.
Schaffer calls his show After the Trees Have Grown, which refers to a time when he returned to the scene of a photograph he’d tried but failed to make, only to find the scene had disappeared because the trees had grown over it. That place was near the Cedar River, also near Southcenter Mall. South King County is Schaffer’s territory. This is important: He is a photographer with a territory. And it’s not metaphorical, but actual, terrain. He lives and works on Beacon Hill; he manages the youth program at the nonprofit Refugee Women’s Alliance, located at 4008 Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. He started there as a volunteer, when he was in graduate school for photography at the University of Washington (2002–2004).
Grad school was full of conversations about reality, but it felt more like “reality.”
“For me,” Schaffer says, “reality is walking around, talking to people, having experiences, and seeing what the world is like in a visceral way.”
To balance his perspective, he started working at the alliance. He eventually graduated with his MFA and had a show at Crawl Space Gallery. Then he went to China with the Peace Corps, where he says that as a half-Filipino man he didn’t stick out as much on the street as he might have, lugging around a camera in his free time (he was detained at one point for shooting a tree near a government building). He doesn’t want to make documentary photographs, but he wants his art to relate to the world outside him. “They’ve got to look cool, and they’ve got to mean something,” he says.
That’s a pretty great freaking mission statement for art. And Schaffer is doing a pretty great job at it. After the Trees Have Grown, his first solo show since returning from China, establishes Schaffer in contrast to the dominant strand of photographers who get play in local galleries (most of whom also went to UW): Isaac Layman, who shoots inside his house and creates smooth, large digital conglomerates; Ross Sawyers, who makes big pictures of tiny architectural models he builds; Adam Satushek and Chris Engman, who layer and stage landscapes; or even Chris Jordan, the environmental activist who stacks images digitally to make giant prints depicting overconsumption.
Schaffer may or may not find a commercial market, but what he’s doing is huge. He’s helping create the new Seattle, the Seattle that’s expanding and reflecting the world, a Seattle linked to towns and cities everywhere. That is Schaffer’s territory. And what a place! A tree with a For Rent sign tacked to it is seen at night and from behind; the focus of the picture is the back of the sign, where we see a homemade collage of cheaply reproduced newspaper-style mug shots and pictures of piles of dead bodies. The title explains: These are Martyrs of the Bangladesh Liberation War, being recycled for street signage in Seattle. Another photograph features a wooden clock in the shape of Eritrea, not ticking (no hands), but hanging on an anonymous carport wall in Greenwood. A picture of a white vaulted ceiling with a golden light fixture looks like a cathedral; it’s the Genesee Park public bathroom.
Through multiple approaches, perspectives, and techniques—not by setting rules, but by adapting for each image—Schaffer presents this Seattle as a series of warrens, in each of which you might find anything. Somebody’s plastered an office window with taped-up white papers; the photograph doesn’t know what they say. The explosion of green plants in a hydroponics storefront seems like a confession blurted out through the store’s veneer of legitimacy.
If there were ever any doubt that these photographs serve a purpose and a people, a small display of separate photographs on a glass-covered table is a reminder. This group of photographs is called Some Children I Know; each picture is five by seven inches and a posed portrait of a child standing in a park or a building—the Rainier Vista housing development basketball courts, the offices of the Refugee Women’s Alliance. The trees, and the kids, are all still growing. Schaffer doesn’t predict a happy or a sad future, he just points to the places where it can be seen. 
Very interesting review of Gregory’s work. Thanks for the read.
Wow, that was a lot of words about some fundamentally boring photos. There are so many rich subject to photograph in the south end, and it seems like he missed it.
his pictures look a lot more like the Seattle I live in than most that I see.
“They’ve got to look cool, they’ve got to mean something.”. In this case, they don’t mean fine art. The adjudication of fine art vs. journalism photography, etc, has a long standing criteria and this clearly isn’t fine art. The myriad of amazing photographs made by journalists, photographers, everyday people, and so on may be compelling and moving but the fact remains that they do not fit the fine art bill. This work clearly belongs to that group-the artist has NOTHING to say that qualifies it as such. He may live his reality and it may be poignant, but fine art it is not. You need ALOT more behind a good photograph these days to stand in Gursky’s shadow.Missed again Graves, got caught up in tour own self perceived “fabulousness”.
Hibrowhater: Hello! Thank you for helping make my point even clearer: Art and photography can both use a little dose of what isn’t considered art these days. Please read Arthur Danto’s “Dangerous Art.” Kthxbai!
Uh….WRONG JEN! In your attempt at satisfying your voracious appetite for hipster trend events and stimulation you have yet again exalted a young artist to a status that is unworthy and embarrassing-to you and the artist. Arthur Danto you are not and that is EXACTLY the problem. I read your previous discovery of Dangerous Art back in the day when you so proudly wove it into your graffiti article and this does not apply here. You in NO WAY bring a comparative view such as Danto’s to your small town perspective of art reportage (criticism”?)as you elevate artists to heights undeserved and shit all over other artists/art related people RECKLESSLY! You should be wary of quoting such headiness as Danto in defense of your limited capacity viewpoints as it is troublesome.
It still isn’t fine art and I beg to differ, I did not make your point clearer. Your comment on what photography could “use” is only telling of how little you know of the genre and how influenced you are on a surface level by art world trends.
warmth,
HB
Oh and BTW, Jen, it’s interesting you call me, HiBrow, a “hater”, when the perception of you and your schtick in the public art realm (which you have CHOSEN to be a part of) is one of disdain, hate, disrespect, and downright rude. This is the word on the street and in the community, FYI, and this is also the very reason HiBrow exists-to try to change your attitude into one of respect and support for local artists and the art community. Think about it before you throw hater at people, hater.
warmth,
HB
p.s.
….it takes on to know one.
Hibrowhater: Did you read “Dangerous Art”? Do you care to take up the actual question of why these photographs are not art besides simply labeling them photojournalism? Which art-world trends are you referring to that elevate photojournalism at the expense of other kinds of art, and which artists exemplify this trend? Also, can you explain why you view Gregory Schaffer as a hipster-trend event? If you see yourself as a watchdog, you have to actually apply critique.
Actually, nevermind. I realize now that you’re just mad at me, and I won’t engage you again. I forgot you’re the person whose very first appearance here included your comments about how Everyone Is Talking about what I’m wearing at openings. Now, Everyone Is Talking about hate! Maybe Everyone might just talk about art. I make mistakes, but I try to talk about art.
Kthxbai for real.
Hibrow: It’s kind of too bad that there is so much hate thrown in with your spiel. There could be some interesting stuff in there (clearly you are invested in the Seattle art scene and think a lot about art and art communities) but you go and cancel yourself out with wacko stabs at Jen. Calm down and take a seat a the table instead of shitting on it.
Also Highbrow, your argument that this is not “fine art” might have been compelling in 1954.
who shits on who “gettingtoknowyoubetter”? A seat at THAT table is of NO interest to HiBrow…but thanks anyway(or not)
Not so much ‘hate’, really, as a narrow, tedious craving to elevate the ego by one’s magical power to distinguish between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art, or between what is and is not ‘art’. HB is a snob, and a pointless, shallow one at that.
An invitation for Hibrow and jen:
As the Art Klatch began precisely for this reason–to demystify the art world and create an open forum for debate about what’s happening in our fair city–perhaps we can host the two of you to hash things out and bury a few (figurative i hope) hatchets.
The Klatch has, every week for the past 3 years, proven to be the exact opposite of what Hibrow claims to be insularity, insiderism, hipsterdom, and exclusionary behavior in what Lawrimore Project is/does, and, by proxy I suppose, anyone who writes about us or our artists. Her jabs at us, our artists, or those that choose to recognize us will historically be proven to be ignorant, poisonous anathema to the spirit of what we are trying to do in our community beyond the gallery itself.
We’ve had plenty of hibrows at our table through the years and I know it has been mutually beneficial to hear each other out. Collegial respect, acknowledgement, and understanding is always the result and what I think Hibrow is after in the end.
I agree with Sharon and jen that until Hibrow offers something beyond a critique of critique, she will only be remembered as doing as much damage as she claims in others though.
Long story short: we have a table that you are more than welcome to come and shit on Hibrow. We only ask that you back that shit up with rigorous, open and informed dialog.
The Klatch is where that can happen. Hell, we can even have you present via Skype to protect your identity.
We’ve reached out to you in the past to simply have a ‘real’ conversation with us to no avail and only to receive more vitriol. We’re earnestly trying again.
Sincerely,
Lawrimore Project
Hi Scott, it’s Susanna = gettingtoknowyoubetter. 🙂
It sounds like you know who this person is?!
–Susanna Bluhm
Susanna-
Everyone knows, or knows someone like, Hibrow. She is the reincarnation of Louis Eilshemius, Ms Graves being her Henry McBride, the Slog her Blind Man, and me her reluctant, unwanted (though earnest) Duchamp.
I fear we have devoted too much space here to the present sidebar at the expense of not seriously considering and discussing Schaffer’s thoughtful work (sorry Gregory). Can we now rally to restore sanity to the Slog?
YOU Duchamp, Mr. Lawrimore???
You would associate yourself to the legendary Monsieur Duchamp! Jeesuz-you REALLY really must be a pompous d$@k!
Restore the “Slog” to the “all about YOU and your Fabulousness and what you feed Jen and your devotees?”
And BTW…no thanks in regards to your invite-even if it IS Halloween and y’all ARE hankerin’ for a witch burnin’ at the stake!! I’ll pass
Warmth,
HB
You don’t get irony do you HB?
(Or history for that matter)
[surprise]
To quote my dissertation advisor’s comment abt one of his colleague’s work, “His verk iz shit.” The only interesting photograph is the Joy/Dawn one. As far as the rest go….nice exposure.
I think the photographs are great. The contrast of the Gursky was nice. Also, it’s interesting to think of these photographs as representing Seattle in a way that I haven’t seen before, in this context.
I just now got around to reading this article but I enjoyed it. Thanks, Jen.
Admittedly, I don’t know much about contemporary photography, but I went to grad school with Gregory and I’ve always enjoyed his work and intellectual process. Like Jen, I appreciate the fact that there are layers of subtle content to unpack in Schaffer’s photos. Gregory’s work reminds me a little of some of Jeff Wall’s images—the “documentary” ones, which despite being decidedly unstaged always manage to contain multiple layers of information about the values and priorities of the unseen people responsible for (intentionally and especially unintentionally) arranging the objects into found still lives.
As for HiBrow, are you REALLY accusing a guy who spent two years while in the prime of his life working for the Peace Corps in China and who currently works with female refugees at a non-profit of making “hipster” art? Do you even know what you mean by that? All I know about you is how you’ve chosen to represent yourself in this thread, but you strike me as being pretty out of touch, as well as maybe having some self-esteem/ego issues that make you feel the need to come off like you know more than everyone else. It’s unfortunate. 🙁