Muriel Hasbun Photographs. As a woman of Jewish and Palestinian heritage raised as a Catholic in Latin America, Hasbun uses her family history as inspiration for her layered, collage-like work.
Muriel Hasbun Photographs
Opening Thursday, March 11th : 6-8pm
March 6 to June 7, 2004
"Memento" is a survey of recent work including work on view at the 50th Venice Biennale.
Selected to represent El Salvador at the 2003 Venice Biennale, Muriel Hasbun creates haunting, emotionally complex photographs. Hasbun, a longtime Corcoran College of Art + Design faculty member, turned to photography as a means of exploring issues of personal identity, memory, and national, ethnic and religious heritage. As a woman of Jewish and Palestinian heritage raised as a Catholic in Latin America, Hasbun uses her family history as inspiration for her layered, collage-like work. Organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Memento: Muriel Hasbun Photographs is on view from March 6 through June 7, 2004.
Using techniques of multiple printing in the darkroom to create a collage-like effect, Hasbun superimposes multiple images and text atop one another; prints and mounts her work on personally significant and unconventional materials such as family linens and discarded window frames; and chemically tones her photographs to alter their color and imply the passage of time. "Hasbun’s work reflects her archaeological excavation of her family’s distant past," comments exhibition curator Paul Roth, Associate Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Corcoran. "Combining the recollections of her relatives with a haunting sense of loss, her photographs transcend generational amnesia to make the past vital again."
Memento: Muriel Hasbun Photographs is organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The exhibition is curated by Paul Roth, Associate Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Corcoran.
Tues - Sat: 11 - 6am.
Image:
Muriel Hasbun
Triptych I (Mes enfants/Photographe Sanitas, 1943)
1996-2003
From the series Protegida (Watched Over): Auvergne—Hélène
Detail (center recto panel) from triptych: four gelatin silver prints and two patterned fabrics in three recto-verso wooden frames
Courtesy of the artist
The Corcoran Gallery of Art - Washington, DC