Author: Isabel Osgood-Roach
Black and white photographs of a suave 19-year-old Barack Obama will be displayed from Oct. 12 to Nov. 6 on the third floor of Coons Administrative Center in the foyer of the presidential offices from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Director of Communications Jim Tranquada explained that “the photo exhibit was brought to campus as part of the celebration surrounding the inauguration of Jonathan Veitch” as the Oxy’s 15th president.
Taken by Lisa Jack ’81 and printed in the Jan. 9, 2009 Time Magazine article titled “Recollections of President-Elect Barack Obama,” the images present the president in an unfamiliar yet insightful light. The photos were brought to Oxy through the generosity of Jack, who Tranquada said “was excited about the idea of bringing them home, so to speak.” Obama’s charismatic, appealing personality-an attribute that helped propel him from the Oxy campus to the Oval Office-is photographically evident in his wide smile and approachable body language.
However, Jack’s images also depict Obama, then called “Barry,” in a youthful, uncertain innocence, one that has been tempered by his high-profile political career.
The series of pictures, of which 16 are being exhibited, were captured in 1980. As Jack recounted in her artist statement for M+B, the gallery where the photos were first shown, she had been exploring her budding interest in photography. She was working on a series of portraits for her independent study course at Oxy, led by English and Comparative Literary Studies Professor Dan Fineman.
According to an L.A. Times article, Jack was told by a friend that there was a student named Barry who would be an ideal subject “because he’s so cute.” Fortuitously, the afro’d, Hawaiian-shirt-loving Obama walked by minutes later and agreed to be photographed. The photo shoot took place in Jack’s off-campus Eagle Rock apartment on Hazelwood, one block from campus. Obama showed up sporting a leather bomber jacket, flared jeans and carrying a packet of cigarettes and a straw Panama hat.
According to Jack’s artist statement, during the shoot, Obama was charismatic, “flashing his awesome grin and [asking] how [Jack] wanted him to pose.” According to Jack, the president’s personable and sincere disposition was clearly evident at a young age. She even went so far to describe him as the “nicest, most sincere guy in college.” Obama’s two years at Oxy were defined by his search for a sense of purpose, reflected upon in his memoir “Dreams from My Father.” His different poses, facial expressions and use of props evoke a distinct sense of youthfulness, experimentation, questioning and possibility. The photos do not depict the familiar, formally-attired politician Barack. Rather, we are presented with a literal snapshot of the pre-Columbia, pre-Harvard, pre-Illinois state senator, pre-44th President of the United States college freshman “Barry” Obama.
Following the afternoon photo shoot, the images laid dormant for 28 years. In 2008, Jack dug up the photos to prove to friends that she had photographed Barack Obama. Although the negatives weren’t properly protected and were moved seven times, the 36 black and white images remained intact. For fear of the photographs being used against Obama during a closely fought Presidential race, Jack chose not to make them public until after the election.
Discussing this decision in an L.A. Times interview, Jack joked that “Hillary would have paid a fortune for them: ‘Is this who you want picking up the phone at 3 a.m.?’ I could have made a boatload of money, probably, but I wanted to do it right.” Therefore, it wasn’t until November, after her classmate had clinched the election, that Jack contacted Time magazine about having her photographs published. Time’s Chief Photo Editor Alice Gabriner was impressed by them and told the L.A. Times that “[Jack] had captured something we hadn’t seen before.”
The pictures were printed in Time’s “Person of the Year” issue, in which Obama was bestowed with the prestigious title. Time described Jack’s 12 published images of his college years as “[revealing] a playful side of the President-elect.” Jack stated in Time that she “hopes the photos reveal a spirit of fun and thoughtfulness.” The photos were received with notable praise. Gabriner told the L.A. Times that, post-publishing, “[Time] got tons of calls from all over the world, overwhelmingly positive. I think younger people were impressed that he was so cool.”
Obama does, unequivocally, exude a marked “coolness” in these images. This quality is solidified by the manner in which they are currently displayed: The photos’ classic, black-and-white tones are dramatized by simple yet dignified black frames. Upon entering the third floor of Coons, the viewer is presented with a hugely enlarged print of Jack’s contact sheet, which depicts all 36 images of 19-year-old Obama. The fast pace in which Jack shot Obama enlivens the images, creating a sense of movement similar to movement found amongst the pages of a flipbook. As Jack stated in an interview with KABC, “You go from fun, whimsical, thoughtful, intense-there’s just so many sides of [Obama] that you see in this one roll of film, that it’s kind of amazing.”Gabe Mathews (first-year) stated, “[The exhibit] makes you realize that Obama was once just like us. It’s really empowering.”
In the Wall Street Journal, Veitch said of Obama that “Occidental was a starting point for him as an intellectual . . . sometimes, the beginning matters more than the end.”
Jack’s images are insightful glimpses into the demeanor of a fellow Occidental student, and are unique in that this former Tiger-“Barry” Obama- happened to become the President of the United States. Viewing the exhibit in Coons is worthwhile in that it forges a unique and intimate connection between President and citizen, young adult and young adult, Oxy student and Oxy student.
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
