ARTIST BREAKDOWN P.V: Photography is Dead...
Photography is Dead... Long Live Photography!
GROUP EXHIBITION
January 8 - February 20, 2021
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting works currently on display here at the gallery. Follow along here and on social media for some background on each maker and their process. The call for this show was centered around 2020: what were the artists’ works-in-progress? What was that one-off piece that felt right in the moment, but didn’t fit into a larger series? What was their current reality? What were their thoughts and feelings about the future?
Zachary P. Stephens, Project Car, 2020. Archival Pigment Print, 24 x 36 inches. Edition 2 of 8. $1,200 Framed. Inquire to Purchase
The prolonged togetherness brought on by the pandemic has led to burnout for many, but especially parents. In The Before Times, many parents were able to have at least some reprieve from the constant, active supervision required of their little ones, but with many schools and activities on hold, there is little to no pause.
Zachary Stephens’ project, Are We There Yet, embodies the endearing chaos of parenthood.
“Are We There Yet? is a series of large-format photographs exploring modern fatherhood. Utilizing humor and satire, the highly constructed tableau images create scenarios that play out anxieties as well as the more routine moments of being a father in rural suburban America.
Each image deals with relatable parenting struggles and the stereotypes associated with fatherhood. Including the realities of managing the chaos, tension, and love in parenting. Juxtaposing the highly polished and colorful elements that can be seen within everyday family life, with scenarios and symbolic elements that create a sense of unease and exhaustion.
If we can’t laugh, we cry. Sometimes we do both.”
Rachel Phillips, Outward Bound, 2020. Unique, Transfer Print to Antique Envelopes, 14 x 18 inches. $1,600 Framed Inquire to Purchase
Rachel Phillips’ process-based objects serve as an ode to women’s suffrage and the history of women photographers.
“In March of 2020, I began this small series in response to the 100 year anniversary of the 19th amendment by first researching and culling symbolism from the suffrage movement—including the color yellow and the rose (the fight for women's enfranchisement was know as the War of the Roses). I combined these visual references with photographs made by pioneering professional photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston around 1899.
I chose to work with scans of Johnston’s photographs (including several antique cyanotype prints) for several reasons. First, I found them visually striking and in their own way representative of the strength, struggle and aspiration of the women’s movement. Also, I respected Johnston as a champion of photography as a profession for women. Finally, by looking at work made by Johnston two decades before the 19th amendment passed, I was reminded how that particular moment sits in a historical continuum: women worked to become self-realized and equal members of society long before suffrage, and ambiguity, imperfection and struggle toward that ideal still exist in great measure today, a hundred years on.”
Sarah Malakoff, Heads and Globes, 2020. Archival Pigment Print, 24 x 20 inches. Edition of 7. $950 Framed. Inquire to Purchase
Needless to say, we’ve spent more time in our homes than ever before this past year; some of us have harnessed this time to nest, while others have allowed the backdrop to blend into the monotony of the quarantine day. Sarah Malakoff’s Personal History series takes a look at the individuality of the modern dwelling.
“For as long as I can remember, I have had a preoccupation with domestic interiors. My long-term photographic project looks at the ways we arrange our most intimate spaces. Our tastes, personalities, quirks and culture are expressed through our décor choices – sometimes intentionally, but often without realizing bits of our most authentic selves have seeped to the surface.
In this body of work, I look closely at objects we display within the home that reference history and culture. These items may speak to the ancestral lineage of the occupant or perhaps merely a desire to appear sophisticated or knowledgeable. Whether they are paintings, photographs, or sculptures of historical figures or events, documents or books, they point to a longing for connection to the past and an engagement with the world at large. They resonate, often humorously or uncannily, with the other objects and architecture that surround them. This collection of private spaces asks the viewer to imagine the people who inhabit them and their relationship to these histories.”
Debi Cornwall, Pineland/Hollywood (Work in-Progress), 2020. 11-Minute Found-Footage Short Film with Sound. Inquire About the Film
2020 brought a new height to our awareness of police brutality and misconduct. In Pineland/Hollywood, Debi Cornwall uses quick, short clips from recognizable Hollywood action movies to create a language with which to tell real stories of police encounters.
“Pineland/Hollywood is the first of a planned trilogy of short films made in collaboration with the survivor of a police shooting. Each version will be in a different genre, using testimony to recount the true story of an incident in which fantasy and reality collided, with disastrous results. The Pineland trilogy is an extension of my project, Necessary Fictions, which explores state-created realities. Submitted in rough cut with temporary score.”
Jake Lahah, "I made this today; I can make it again tomorrow," 2020. Stack of Photocopies, 11 x 8.5 inches. Open Edition, Free to Take.
How can the photograph, as an object, function? Jake Lahah has transformed his photographs to easily reproducible risograph prints, which exist in the gallery as a stack of takeaway objects. The title of the work, “I made this today; I can make it again tomorrow,” references a process that separates itself from the preciousness of photographic and fine art traditions, and in doing so becomes more accessible.
“The work is a risograph print of some palm trees I took pictures of in North Carolina. I've been thinking about place/location and the ways location can inform narrative and queer aesthetics.
I'm asking the viewers to consider the last time they received or were handed a flyer. The work is meant to sit as a stack of photocopies that are a free takeaway from the exhibition. I'm interested in the ways photography and printmaking intersect.”