VISTA: Redux, Photographs, 1969 by Federico Santi

June 13 - August 12, 2009

Peace Now,1969 Digital print from scanned negative

Photographer Federico (Rico) Santi has a favorite quotation from King Lehr and the Gilded Age, Elizabeth Drexel Lehr’s 1935 scandalous “tell-all” about her marriage to Harry “King” Lehr. “Our moments of destiny steal upon us so quietly, generally so unperceived, that we are hardly aware of them until they have passed by. Only in after years we look back on them and see them for their true perspective, knowing that they made or marred our whole lives.”

The future is a constant presence in “VISTA Redux: Photographs, 1969, by Federico Santi,” now showing at the Newport Art Museum. Looking at Santi’s photographs documenting his time in South Florida with Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) forty years ago, there is a sense of time unfolding, moving on fast forward. In each image we see the moment and also the milestones, tragedies and triumphs that will follow.

It was 1969: the year of Woodstock, the moon landing and the year Richard Nixon became president; when 250,000 people marched on Washington to protest the Vietnam War, the Beatles released Abbey Road, the draft was instituted in the US, and the Supreme Court ordered the immediate desegregation of 33 Mississippi school districts. 

That same year, VISTA sent 7500 volunteers into poor communities across the United States. 
Founded as Volunteers in Service to America in 1965 and incorporated into the AmeriCorps network of programs in 1993, AmeriCorps VISTA was and is a national service program designed specifically to fight poverty.

Today, Santi is a photographer, author and co-owner with his life partner, John Gacher, of The Drawing Room Antiques on Spring Street in Newport, where he has lived for over 25 years. In 1969, he was 23 years old and a recent graduate of Florida State University where he majored in photography. He recalls, “It was a stormy year for America. I had to make a decision about my future. I had to make a choice of either enlisting in the military or seeking alternative service. I chose VISTA.” “Vista Redux” recalls the volunteers, Broward County community workers, children, teachers and migrant laborers Santi encountered during his year of service.

“VISTA Redux” features about three dozen large format images. Santi used two cameras for his projects: a Leica M3 and a Hasselblad. He shot in black and white, explaining, “I really saw everything in black and white at that time in my life.” Asked whether he intended a double entendre, Santi pauses and says, “It’s an artistic statement but I can see that it could be a comment on youthful idealism.”

Santi describes his fellow VISTA volunteers as free-thinkers. “It was the late 1960s and it was all about free love, rock music, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. I’m sure many of them thought of themselves as revolutionaries of a sort.”

Santi paints a vivid picture of himself at that time. “My standard attire was an Air Force jumpsuit. I had long blonde hair and gold-rimmed glasses. I wore black army boots with purple stars glued all over them. I looked like a freak!” The only image of the photographer himself in the exhibition shows a not-so-bizarrely dressed Santi, alone, seated in a chair outdoors with a pensive, perhaps inwardly-focused look on his face. In contrast, many of his fellow volunteers are shown together in groups at meetings, at work, at play or caught in moments of twenty-something goofiness.

Curator Nancy Whipple Grinnell notes, "Rico and I selected thirty-four images from literally hundreds that we felt conveyed a sense of youthful idealism amidst the stark reality of children and adults living in poverty. I find a certain timelessness in many of the photographs, both in terms of the poverty, which continues today and the enduring human spirit."

“VISTA Redux: Photographs, 1969, by Federico Santi” runs through October 25. Also showing this month at the Newport Art Museum are “Rita Rogers: Selected Paintings,”  “The Art of Life: Selections from the Collection of Terrence and Suzanne Murray” sponsored by William Vareika Fine Arts Ltd, and the “Photographers’ Guild Members’ Exhibition.”