Lee Godie loved photo booths
Posted 3/30/16 in: New Jersey New York
I recently came across this article on Lee Godie, one of Chicago’s most prolific artists, and her love for bus station photo booths. Eccentric in many ways, Godie would often peddle her paintings, drawings, and photographs to museum patrons on the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago. Although she lived the life of a homeless artist, Godie was no amateur. Her work gained international acclaim, and has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Hayward Gallery in London, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Despite her notoriety within the artist community, many details of her private life remain a mystery, particularly, her reasons for living on the streets.
An exhibition originally curated for the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, by Karen Patterson, found that Godie’s photo booth photos provided a unique perspective into this enigmatic artist. “The photo booth was a world in which she could see herself,” Patterson said. “She was out there without a barrier, and didn’t have a studio or home to go back to in many cases. I see the photo booth as a private moment where she could both see and embolden herself as an artist in Chicago.”
“More than her drawings or other objects she made, the photo-booth self-portraits reflect that eccentric personality that so many of us remember about her,” said Michael Bonesteel, adjunct assistant professor of art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“The photo booth was a world in which she could see herself,” Patterson said. “She was out there without a barrier, and didn’t have a studio or home to go back to in many cases. I see the photo booth as a private moment where she could both see and embolden herself as an artist in Chicago.”
Interesting to see how this talented artist turned bus station photo booths into her own private studio.
