Essay - On the Road, Again. Noah H.F. Bullock and Zander Saleh

Seventy years ago, Jack Kerouac penned (more like scribbled) his defining work of the Beat Generation as he traveled across the US with his band of counterculture enthusiasts. It was, as are most good reflections, an odyssey of unknown proportions. Like our fearless, ancient Greek hero Odysseus, all they knew is that they were going out. And then life happened in front of them.

This exhibition is a modern day “On the Road” by two midwestern photographers. Both are graduates of the University of Dubuque and both work at the University of Dubuque. Mind you, there is no Sal Paradise nor Dean Moriarty here (the metaphorical alter egos of Kerouac and his sidekick, Neal Cassady). Noah Bullock and Zander Saleh aren’t dramatic protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry and drug use. They’re photographers but even more to the point in this show, they are storytellers. And time travelers in their own right. These pictures demonstrate visually what so intrigued Kerouac as he left the Big City to explore the land. Frozen moments, forever.

This show is a bouillabaisse of color and black/white photography. Kerouac called it “spontaneous prose”. Bullock’s peek-a-boo moose and large-horned steer present a reluctant America similar to that of Kerouac. Saleh’s understated, black and white compositions are often solitary, perhaps even lonely. We see his vision in a one-point perspective of fresh water streaming into the primeval forest and in the urban jumble street signs signaling no one in an empty Denver environment.

These are wholesome images and in this, both artists have decided to reveal the traditional definition of photography. They make us stop and actually look at scenes we’d otherwise probably pass by. It’s about focus. Bullock and Saleh focus on an America in their journey thru Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. And they remind us that we too need to focus to find ourselves. Distraction exists aplenty. These works seem like the Zen of the West.

In a letter to a student in 1961, Kerouac wrote: "(we) embarked on a journey through post-Whitman America to FIND that America and to FIND the inherent goodness in American man. It was really a story about 2 …buddies roaming the country in search of God. And we found him.”

There is also a religious feel to these works. Not Sunday school stuff, but the notion of hope, decency and kindness. Real faith. This is a lot to ask of photographers. Perhaps that’s why they went On the Road, Again, to find themselves as well.

Alan Garfield
Director, Bisignano Art Gallery