San Jose Museum of Art Presents “Ordinary Folks” by Photographer Bill Owens

SAN JOSE, CA.- “Ordinary folks doing ordinary things”—that is how photographer Bill Owens described his subjects. Like a visual anthropologist, Owens astutely recorded the customs, symbols, and social relationships that characterized American middle-class culture in the 1970s. Owens adopted an air of objectivity that recalls the New Topographics, a generation of photographers such as Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams, and Joel Deal, who portrayed the built environment with detachment. The exhibition is on display from July 16, 2011 through February 5, 2012 [...]