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Boston Globe
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
A feast for the eyes (with a side order of bacon)
"Russ's Kitchenette Diner," 1977. Andrew Mark Satter/Andrew mark Satter The mall isn't known for photo shows (though in 2021 it did host a pop-up for the Photographic Resource Center). This one has a reason for being on those particular premises. Russ's was at the corner of First and Rogers streets. By Satter's calculation, that means his photographs are now hanging 'within a few hundred feet' of where the diner was. Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up The gallery is open during regular CambridgeSide hours: Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Louisa Vilardi, "Andrew Satter." Louisa Vilardi The restaurant opened in 1937, a classic Advertisement Russ's has two later claims to fame. Shortly after it closed, the diner was used for a scene in the 1978 film 'The Brink's Job.' And it's the subject of a 27-minute documentary, 'Down Around Here,' that aired on GBH in 1996. Director David Sutherland, a Russ's regular, shot it around the time Satter was taking his photographs, during the mid-'70s. Andrew Satter, "Morning News," 1974. Andrew Mark Satter/Andrew mark Satter Over the course of 2½ years, Satter shot hundreds of photographs of the diner, both inside and out. He quickly earned the trust of employees and patrons by giving them prints of photographs he took of them. Young started displaying the pictures in the diner. It was a pop-up ahead of its time. In a blurb for a book of Satter's diner photographs, 'Walk-Ins Welcome,' the crime novelist Dennis Lehane says that each image 'feels like a short story.' Certainly, Satter has stories to tell about them. Andrew Satter, "Charlie," 1974. Andrew Mark Satter/Andrew mark Satter In one photograph, the diner's cook, Charlie Diamandis, sits in a back corner behind two white plastic buckets and a pile of spud skins. 'Charlie would peel 100 pounds of potatoes every day,' Satter said. Another photograph shows a waitress, Geri Silva. When it's suggested that Silva looked like the sort of server who calls customers 'Honey' or 'Dear,' Satter shook his hand. 'No, it was 'hon': 'You want your regular order, hon?'' Andrew Satter, "Geri," 1975. Andrew Mark Satter/Andrew mark Satter Did Satter have a regular order? 'A western omelet, a bran muffin — Russ baked them fresh every day — and, let's see, I hadn't started to drink coffee yet, so tea.' Satter will give a free talk about the Diner Project in the gallery on Level 2 at CambridgeSide on April 12, from 1 to 3 p.m., and 'Down Around Here' will be shown. Advertisement Mark Feeney can be reached at
Boston Globe
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Round and round they go: At the PRC, ‘A Simple Circle' pays homage to the beginnings of popular photography
When one thinks of a photographic image — doesn't matter whether it's hanging on a museum wall, sitting in a photo album, staring out from a smartphone — the shape is surely rectangular. It's a shape that's come to be understood as defining the medium almost as much as the interplay of light and shadow does. James Gehrt, from "A Simple Circle." James Gehrt Pro or con, rectilinearity is taken as a given. It wasn't for George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, back in the late 19th century; nor is it for Advertisement Emphasizing the idea of homage, 'A Simple Circle' includes four early Kodak cameras, and very handsome machines they are, as well as several dozen vintage photographs (all round) and such related period ephemera as advertisements, articles, and instructions. James Gehrt, from "A Simple Circle." James Gehrt Those items are subsidiary to Gehrt's own 67 photographs. All are printed in a velvety black-and-white. They're uniform in size, 10 inches by 13 inches; in presentation, matted but not framed; and in shape, as the title declares — not that there's anything simple about circles. There are no captions or titles, which helps give a sense of the images being outside of time, as does the absence of any people in them. Advertisement Gehrt's unfailingly handsome consistency of approach means that style subsumes content. Yet on closer inspection that content quite varied. There's subject matter one might expect: statuary, landscapes, architectural details. There's also subject matter one likely would not: crocodiles, a bear, a contemporary cityscape. The uniformity of presentation makes it easy to overlook the interrelationships among given groupings. (The show was put together by Gehrt and the PRC's program manager, Catherine LeComte Lecce.) Flanking that cityscape are a classical façade and what looks to be an elaborate 19th-century greenhouse. An escalator is next to set of rudimentary outdoor stairs. Several of the photographs have round subjects — wheels, domes — meaning, yes, circles within circles. A photograph of an old wagon hangs alongside a covered car. James Gehrt, from "A Simple Circle." James Gehrt It's not just early Kodaks that inspire Gehrt. That covered car alludes to the 'As a photographer, I have tried to recapture the quiet unobtrusive round images from the 1890s with technology from the modern day,' Gehrt writes. 'I have collected . . . historic round photographs over the years. Now, I am able to create modern comparisons by contrasting and juxtaposing the original Kodak images with my own images. The result is a circle that spans 133 years of visual communication and expression.' Advertisement Will the circle be unbroken? Not if Gehrt and this abundant, beguiling show can help it. A SIMPLE CIRCLE. James Gehrt At Photographic Resource Center, VanDernoot Gallery, University Hall, Lesley University, 1815 Massachusetts, Cambridge, through March 16. 617-975-0600, Mark Feeney can be reached at
