"I note the obvious differences/in the human family…but we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike." These lines by Maya Angelou opened Mary Ellen Mark’s American Odyssey, her visual depiction of the United States from 1963 to 1999 that took in backyard paddling pools in North Carolina and Hollywood film sets, Ku Klux Klanners and Gay Pride marchers, homeless Seattle street kid Tiny and Etta James with her poodle. At first glance, Mark’s work was an excavation of…
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