calendario eventi  :: 

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9/3/2012

Three Exhibitions

Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami

I Witness

Curated by: Bernice Steinbaum & Carl Juste

Carl Juste, photojournalist/artist, in collaboration with Bernice Steinbaum, gallerist, is pleased to announce I Witness, a photography exhibit that will bring together the works of twenty-five global contemporary photojournalists/artists. This unprecedented exhibition will take place at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Miami, Florida.

This exhibition explores conflict, as depicted by the artists, in terms of experiences that are personal, internal, psychosocial, military, cultural or religious.

Photojournalism is a catalyst for public dialogue, and those cultural experiences contribute to a sense of place and global identity. It is in this spirit that I Witness hopes to engage the international art community. This exhibition seeks to underwrite the work of artists who are photojournalists worldwide and support the value of freedom of the press and open government. It will employ internet and other digital technologies in order to bring to light the obscure voice of visual communicators.

Catalogue Available

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Deborah Willis

The Town That Freedom Built, Eatonville, Florida, Est. 1887
“I saw the horizon…”

I used to climb to the top of one of the huge chinaberry trees, which guarded our front gate, and look out over the world. The most interesting thing that I saw was the horizon. It grew upon me that I ought to walk out to the horizon and see what the end of the world was like.
Zora Neale Hurston

In her book, Dust Tracks on a Road, Hurston writes that her mother encouraged her to jump to the sun. Willis’ photography in Eatonville in 2011 is about revealing the history through the materiality of the photograph and to create a revised reading of this historic town through Zora’s words. Eatonville was one of the first all-black towns to be formed after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and was incorporated on August 15, 1887. Eatonville is one of several African American towns settled across the United States after the Civil War. All of the towns’ officials and residents were black. Willis read Zora Neale Hurston’s letters to engage with the town. She was intrigued by the way Hurston describes her love of the city and her memories.

In weaving Zora’s narrative and her photographs, Willis reconstructed an imagined past through text and image depicting its beauty, spirituality and cultural memory. In describing the town to Zora’s patron, Charlotte Osgood Mason in a letter dated, May 17, 1932 Hurston writes:

Eatonville now has a paved street. Do you know that in more than fifty years of this town’s existence that never has a white man’s child been born here? My father was a mulatto but he was born in Alabama and moved here while young, following his employer and father who settled in the white community. There is no known case of white-negro affair around here. No white-Negro prostitution even.

Deborah Willis, among numerous other awards, is a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow (Genius Award). She is the recipient of the following awards between 2011 and 2005:

* Amistad’s President Award, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT 2011
* Aljira Art Award, Newark, NJ, 2011
* Harvard University, DuBois Fellow 2010
* New York University Humanities Institute, 2010
* Society for Photographic Education, Honored Educator, 2010
* Honorary Doctorate, Pratt Institute, 2007
* John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, 2005
* Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. Fellowship, 2005

Her education includes:

* George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, - Cultural Studies Ph.D.
* City College of New York, Art History Department, New York, NY, - M.A. Art History and Museum Studies.
* Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y., M.F.A. Photography.
* Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia, PA. -B.F.A. Photography.

She has written and photographed many published books. A few books that are familiar are listed:

Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs, Amistad/HarperCollins, 2008
Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs, W .W. Norton & Co, 2009

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Framed 3
Project Room
Debora Hirsch & Iaia Filiberti

The beginnings of cinema featured stunning starlets whose divine femininity was forever eternalized by the same screen shots which allowed for understandings of quintessential womanhood to infiltrate the lives of international audiences. Still and forever frozen in time, images of the ideal female have prevailed then and now, establishing notions of gender throughout history. Women were expected to be forever beautiful and young. However, with the desire to present this stereotype came the disenfranchisement of women actresses who did not fit the mold.

The video Framed 3, part of the series Framed, by artists Debora Hirsch and Iaia Filiberti, forces the audience to challenge the timeless understanding of the picture perfect female archetype through clips of old Hollywood films followed by a dark screen and white text unmasking the idyllic facade created by Hollywood. The poignant performances of these women are interrupted by austere black and white textual information, destroying the vision instilled in the viewer a few moments before. The juxtaposition of eternal beauty with the stark realization that the lives of these starlets were often plagued with depression, suicide, drug use, and mental illness compels audiences to question prototypical images of culture throughout time. Framed 3 unveils the hidden, gritty, vulnerable and impermanent realities experienced by these actresses. The women presented in the video lived through confrontations brought about by extraordinary success, racism, and unwomanly behavior such as violence, drug use, and sexual assertiveness. The video includes the acting performances of Loretta Young, Sandra Dee, and Dorothy Dandridge.

Image: Framed 3, Debora Hirsch & Iaia Filiberti

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 10th, 2012, 2-9 pm

Bernice Steinbaum Gallery
3550 North Miami Avenue - Miami
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 6pm
Free admission

stampa

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