You Can Go Home Again

Through it all, making it all work, is the tension of contradiction. You get the feeling that part of Eggleston wants to flee the scene, and another part can't bear to avert his eyes for a single second. This is the part of Eggleston's art that I find the most Southern, or that as a Southerner I identify with most strongly. For both of us, the South is the place where we feel the least not at home. This is, I know, a most personal reaction, but one that I refuse to discount—if you can't take art personally, then what's the point? More than anyone, Eggleston has taught me how to look at my own backyard, or the backyard I hail from. My appreciation of his art may be in large part an accident of birth. But I can't tell you how lucky that accident makes me feel.

© 2008