Josephine Sacabo: Music Was The Room She Lived In

September 30, 2021 - January 7, 2022

Music Was The Room She Lived In is a collection from four different bodies of work: Those Who Dance, Le Diable Au Corps (Devil in the Flesh), Music Was The Room She Lived In, and Photism.

Shannon Taggart: Séance: Photographs by Shannon Taggart

August 31 - December 17

For the past twenty years American artist Shannon Taggart (born 1975) has documented Spiritualist practices and communities in the United States, England, and Europe. The resulting body of work, Séance, examines the relationship of Spiritualism to human celebrity, its connections to art, science, and technology, and its intrinsic bond with the medium of photography. This exhibition presents forty-seven haunting images from the series, revealing the emotional, psychological, and physical dimensions of Spiritualism in the 21st century.

Shannon Taggart is an artist and author based in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. Her photographs have been exhibited and featured internationally, including within the publications TIME, New York Times Magazine, Discover, and Newsweek. Her work has been recognized by Nikon, Magnum Photos and the Inge Morath Foundation, American Photography and the Alexia Foundation for World Peace. Taggart’s monograph, SÉANCE (Fulgur Press, 2019) was listed as one of TIME magazine’s ‘Best Photobooks of 2019.’

This exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Pensacola Museum of Art.

The Photographer in the Garden

September 11 - December 30

Since the invention of the medium, photographers have been drawn by the allure of flowers. This group exhibition excerpted from Aperture’s book The Photographer in the Garden celebrates the rich history of artists working in the garden as a site of inspiration and reinvention. Featuring work from Sam Abell, Alice Austen, Mack Cohen, Stephen Gill, Lonnie Graham, Justine Kurland, Lori Nix, Bill Owens, Sheron Rupp, Collier Schorr, and Mike Slack.

Jerry Spearman: 9/11 Commemoration

September 11 - December 30

At the beginning of 2021, cultural and preservation leaders met at the 9/11 Memorial Museum to discuss cultural institutions’ response to the 20th anniversary and plan performances to provide our community with spaces to gather and reflect on the power of the arts in NYC to heal. The Alice Austen House will join many other cultural institutions to light our building in blue on Saturday, September 11 and be exhibiting vintage Landmarks Commission photographs of Staten Island firehouses from September 11 through December 30 in our contemporary sunroom gallery.

Focus: Power, Agency, and Objectivity in Early Photography

August 26 - December 23

British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) once asked: “what is focus, and who has the right to say what focus is the legitimate focus?” Cameron’s question lies at the heart of this exhibition, which traces the early history of photography while probing how myths surrounding the perceived objectivity of this new medium conceal the power dynamics inherent in who photographs, what is photographed, and how photographs are viewed and understood.

A woman who came to photography in her late 40s, Cameron was disparaged by male art critics for the soft focus of her images, an intentional artistic choice often dismissed as a sign of technical ineptitude. This critique speaks to a fundamental tension that dominated discourses on photography in the 1800s: was it primarily a scientific tool best used for precise documentation, or a form of artistic expression on par with well-established genres such as painting? In other words, are photographs, by their very nature, truthful? Or can they manipulate and distort reality?

After an introductory section on early photographic technologies, this exhibition explores these questions through three themes: portraiture, European photographs of faraway lands recently—or soon to be—colonized, and images of the American West. In each case, the photographs on view push us to consider the visible and invisible systems of power that led to their creation, and how photographers’ decisions support or subvert dominant historical narratives.

Organized by Alexandra Letvin, assistant curator of European and American art

Jeanine Michna-Bales: Standing Together: Inez Milholland’s Final Campaign for Women’s Suffrage

October 8 - December 3

In 1916, Inez Milholland Boissevain (1886–1916) embarked on a grueling campaign across the Western US on behalf of the National Women’s Party appealing for women’s suffrage ahead of the 1916 presidential election. Standing Together, by artist Jeanine Michna-Bales (born 1971), retraces Milholland’s journey. The 30-year-old suffragist delivered some 50 speeches to standing-room-only crowds in eight states in 21 days: Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Utah, Nevada, and California. She battled chronic illness and lack of sleep during her travels and died a month after her last speech in Los Angeles, where her final public words were, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?”

Through her photographs, combining dramatic landscapes and historical reenactments of important vignettes of Milholland on her journey with archival materials, Michna-Bales captures a glimpse of the monumental effort required to pass the 19th Amendment.

In-Person: Opening Reception: Oct 09 11:00AM – 3:00PM

Elaine Duigenan: Bloßfeldts Lehrling

November 14, 2021 - January 30, 2022

Elaine Duigenan, British photographic artist, recreates Karl Blossfeldt’s iconic photographs of plants in twine. This series was premiered by Klompching Gallery [New York] at AIPAD [Association of International Photography Art Dealers] and has continuously attracted attention. It received gold at the Prix de la Photographie (Paris) and an international photography award at the Pingyao International Festival of Photography, in China. The images depict handmade objects made from cable ties*. They attempt to recreate plant structures seen in iconic photographs by German artist Karl Blossfeldt (1920s). Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) was a German art professor and wanted to encourage his students to pay conscious attention. He built a camera that could magnify up to 30 times and took hundreds of photographs of plant forms. He wanted to demonstrate that the best design was already given in nature. The artist engaged with his images and thus, became a student of today – twisting, tying and bending the material to her will. She says: “My imperfect specimens taunted me with their limitations. But embracing the flaws became the meaning of the work, and showing the connections and loose threads reveals the tension between perfection and imperfection.”
*A cable tie is a metal wire covered with a thin plastic strip used to close the openings of bags, such as garbage or bread bags.
The artist has exhibited internationally and her work is in collections such as the V&A and the Museum of Fine Art in Houston. Her work is represented by Klompching Gallery in New York. In late 2009, one of her paintings was flown to the International Space Station on the shuttle Atlantis. Elaine helped bring the practice of digital scanning (scanography) to the forefront in the 1990s, and her work is exemplified in the V&A’s History of Photographic Processes. It is a truly unique method of capturing such detail and depth. The objects Elaine works with are found or made; things are never quite what they seem, and her work is reduced to a search for unique beauty. Pale specimens glow in deep black spaces and seem to hang by a thread. There is strength and fragility, perfection and imperfection. Her works excite the viewer as the images hover somewhere between whimsicality and elegance.

We cordially invite you to the exhibition
Elaine Duigenan
Blossfeldt’s Apprentice
Photography
November 14, 2021 to January 31, 2022
Vernissage: Sunday, November 14, 2021, 11 a.m. Chiara Bohn will speak at the opening.
The then valid Corona protection rules apply

Fragments of Epic Memory

September 1, 2021 - February 21, 2022

Fragments of Epic Memory will invite visitors to experience the multiple ways of encountering the Caribbean and its diaspora, from the period following emancipation through today.

The first exhibition organized by the AGO’s new Department of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora, it will blend historical and contemporary narratives, presenting more than 200 photographs from the AGO’s Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs alongside paintings, sculpture, and video works by modern and contemporary Caribbean artists that show how the region’s histories are constantly revisited and reimagined through artistic production over time.

Fragments of Epic Memory is curated by Julie Crooks, Curator of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora and will feature a new commission by Sandra Brewster and art works by Ebony G. Patterson, Frank Bowling, and Manuel Mathieu to name just a few.

Image Caption:

André Kertész: André Kertész: Postcards from Paris

October 2, 2021 - January 17, 2022

Joe Clementi: NYC 1970–1990

November 1 - December 18

NYC 1970’s–1990’s

Joe Clementi, a commercial photographer operating from his studio on 30th Street and 7th Avenue for 20 years, a methodical black and white analog film photographer, photographed celebrities and fashion during NYC’s wildest of times. Joe has slowly been unsurfacing his archive of negatives over the course of the last few years to reveal hidden gems of nightlife and attitude of a bygone era of New York City.

Werner Bischof: Werner Bischof, Japan 1951 – 1952

November 25, 2021 - February 26, 2022

With the exhibition “Werner Bischof, Japan 1951 – 1952” the Bildhalle Zurich presents in addition to Bischof’s renowned photographs of Japan, including the iconic Meiji Shrine, newly discovered photographs, never published before. Platinum prints in limited editions as well as exclusive vintage prints from the estate will be on view. 

Rachel Papo: It’s Been Pouring: The Dark Secret of the First Year of Motherhood

December 2 - December 31

Reception: Thurs December 2, 5-8pm

Rachel Papo subverts the romantic notions of motherhood as she shares the very real condition of postpartum depression that she and others experience. By documenting contrasting and visceral feelings through photographs and journal entries, Papo builds awareness of something that often goes unnoticed or is misunderstood. It’s Been Pouring sets out to capture the voices of mothers in their darkest moments. This collection of photographs and interviews shines a direct light on their experiences, exposing the unbearable tension that exists between the miracle of birth and the horror that follows, leading the viewer through a narrative of despair.

Rachel Papo (American-Israeli, American Born, b. 1970) was born in Columbus, Ohio and was raised in Israel. She began photographing as a teenager and attended a renowned fine-arts high-school in Haifa, Israel. At age eighteen she served in the Israeli Air Force as a photographer. She earned a BFA in Fine Arts from Ohio State University (1991-96), and an MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York City (2002-05). Rachel’s photographs are included in numerous public and private collections, and have been exhibited and published worldwide. She is represented by ClampArt Gallery in New York City, and has published two monographs, Serial No. 3817131 (PowerHouse Books, 2008) and Homeschooled (Kehrer Verlag, 2016). She has been selected as a finalist for the “Santa Fe Prize for Photography,” and was awarded a NYFA Fellowship in 2006. In 2009, Rachel won a Lucie Award for “Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year.” She lives with her husband and two children in Brooklyn, New York, working on personal projects and accepting commissions.