Shimon and Lindemann’s Midwest Story

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Represented by The Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee

Self-Portrait in the Garden at Dusk, Whitelaw, WI, 1998 Palladium Print © J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

It was the mid ’80s when I first met John Shimon and Julie Lindemann. They strolled into The Force on Water Street, an upscale furniture store where it was my job to enliven the walls with art produced by Wisconsinites. The store is no more, but Shimon and Lindemann live large through their photographs. Joined at the hip (or so it seems), they’ve explored ordinary people in ordinary places, and that, my friends, is what makes them extraordinary. Plus they often dress in vintage garb that gives them the aura of elegant Hollywood castoffs from the 1930s. They could be Nick & Nora.

Shimon was born in 1961. Lindemann was born four years earlier. Together they played in a punk rock band (Hollywood Autopsy) formed in Madison where they were working on their respective degrees at the University of Wisconsin. In 1989 they studied social documentary photography at Illinois State University and forged ahead with multiple exhibitions and honors. Currently, they are associate professors at Lawrence University in Appleton.

Midwestern to the bone, they returned home after a New York City stint. Lucky for us, The Big Apple was the big loser. Shimon and Lindemann’s solid Midwestern sense informed them it was best to document what they knew best. They are masters of blurring the line between hardscrabble reality and the illusion that the land gives a damn. It doesn’t. There is grit in their badass and stark approach to documenting their surroundings, and it is nearer to truth than not. You can run but you can’t hide, though yes, we humans have devised multiple ways of ignoring our lot. Does their camera twist truth? I think not.

The first comprehensive exhibition of their body of work, “There’s a Place: Photographs by J. Shimon & J. Lindemann” is up through June 7 at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.