Shtetl in the sun
works by Andy Sweet
Cleveland Print Room is proud to present a selection of works by photographer Andy Sweet. In the 1970s, after his schooling at University of South Florida and University of Colorado, Sweet returned to his native Miami Beach. He and his friend Gary Monroe set out to document life there, focusing on the significant retired Jewish population. Sweet captures the essence of these aging adults with playful composition and vibrant color.
Lauren Goff said of Sweet in her essay The Brightest Still the Fleetest, "..But Sweet is really looking. He's paying attention. The way he sees people nearing the end of their life is vibrant; he loves them in the brightest colors he can magic out of the camera...the colour shouts old age triumphant: a woman in a red wig leans on her yellow umbrella, grinning rakishly. A man in a cabana full of trophies--everything matching in red, white, and blue--beams with pride from under his captain's hat. Picture after picture shows old ladies sitting quietly in their beach chairs outside of their tiny hotels, gentle moments of rest, their sneakers huge at the ends of their columnar, panty-hosed legs.. hot and slanted sun and lengthening shadows, there is a sense of swiftly depleting time, a threnodial quality to the work that underscores the humour and deepens it." Though created more than 40 years ago, Sweet’s images are ever more fresh and full of color. Sweet bears witness to his native Miami and its elderly Jewish inhabitants with tenderness. There is a sense of leisure, humour, and play so quietly juxtaposed. He has with intention abandoned some formalist conventions and all self-consciousness to allow ideas and identity to permeate visually. Said to be drawn back to the "ferocious strangeness" of a transitioning Miami and the beauty of old faces, some assert that Sweet was potentially aware that the geriatic haven of Art Deco Hotels would give way to a much different "youth-hungry" Miami.
In 1982, Sweet met an untimely demise. His work would not again be seen for another 25 years. The discovery of Sweet's test prints in a family storage unit has garnered new interest in his photography, and some of his surviving prints have been restored over the last decade, forming the basis of the book, Shtetl in the Sun, and The Last Resort documentary, favorably reviewed in the New York Times. These works of Sweet, some debuting publicly in this exhibition, are a striking commentary on culture, age, place, and displacement.
Special thanks to our community curation team Susie Zimmer, Lisa Kurzner, Paul Markowicz, and Dan Rothenfeld.
