Corey Keller, assistant curator of photography, SFMOMA
When Eggleston’s photographs were first exhibited in 1976, they provoked a critical response that ranged from admiration to outright condemnation. His medium, subject matter, and compositional style broke from established conventions of what constituted fine art photography, and his project – although visually compelling – was hard to summarize. Keller looks at why Eggleston’s pictures remain so difficult to talk about critically, and why they continue to resonate so powerfully today.