Jonathan Katz tonight at Light Work

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We look forward to hosting a lecture tonight by Jonathan Katz, co-curator of the ground-breaking Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. If you are in the Central New York area, this is a not-to-miss event. Katz will deliver a presentation about his experiences with curating the exhibition, which is the first by a major museum to focus on sexual difference in the creation of modern American portraiture. He will also speak about the censoring of David Wojnarowicz’s video A Fire in My Belly from the exhibition. The work was removed from the exhibition by the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, G. Wayne Clough, after pressure was exerted to remove it by William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, and by Congressional conservatives including Republican Speak of the House John Boehner and Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

The removal of A Fire in My Belly seriously undermined the credibility and institutional autonomy of the Smithsonian. More importantly, it was a blatant act of censorship by those who seek to stifle free speech and the First Amendment in this country. Ever since the removal of A Fire in My Belly from the National Portrait Gallery, institutions large and small across America have staged screenings and lectures to create and maintain an open dialog about the work itself and what it means to everyone’s rights when one artist is censored due to the criticisms of special interest groups.

Katz’s lecture tonight at Light Work, entitled Ending the Loud Silence: Hide/Seek the Future of Queer Exhibitions and Freedom of Speech, will be the latest step in keeping these critical issues alive in the national dialog. Visit hideseek.org to read a list of current, past, and upcoming events in support of Wojnarowicz, openness in cultural debate, and the First Amendment.

—Mary Goodwin, Associate Director

Image: David Wojnarowicz, A Fire In My Belly (Film In Progress) and A Fire In My Belly Excerpt, 1986-87
Super 8mm film transferred to video (black and white and color, silent), 13:06 min. and 7:00 min. Courtesy of The Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W Gallery, New York and The Fales Library and Special Collections/ New York University.

Yolanda del Amo talks about Archipelago

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Throughout the month of January, Flak Photo has featured photographs in it WEEKEND series by Yolanda del Amo from her ongoing series Archipelago. Yolanda makes images that eloquently depict moments in human relationships when people, although in the presence of another or others, exist in their own interior worlds. At these times, Yolanda’s subjects seem to inhabit an in-between space, free of words but full with the possibility of emotional tensions and dramas. Archipelago highlights these important times when the real work of keeping relationships together or driving them apart takes place. I recently had an opportunity to talk with Yolanda over email about her images, her residency at Light Work, and other events that have driven the series.

Mary Goodwin: Archipelago shows us a common and universal characteristic of our relationships that often goes unnoticed. I can imagine an ah-ha experience when you first became aware of the power inherent in these moments. How did you start making these photographs?

Yolanda del Amo: Archipelago grew out of a body of work called Domestica, which explored the relationship between a maid and her lady. I was interested in the power distribution between these two women (better say these two roles), and how the spaces they occupied reflected their personal territories. But after a while I felt the limitations of dealing just with two characters and I decided to open up the work to other people, which felt wonderful as it offered endless possibilities. The power of these moments has always fascinated me—its complexity, beauty, and sometimes awkwardness—but the ah-ha revelation for me was more about how photography as a medium could capture them effectively.

MG: I recently returned from photo LA where your image Edith, Juan was hanging in the Light Work booth. After enjoying the image and perusing the work available in Contact Sheet 159, several people referenced the work of Edward Hopper in connection with Archipelago. Has Hopper entered into your thinking about the series? What artists have influenced you in your work?

YDA: Yes, Hopper is definitely an important visual reference for me, and I have been influenced by his representation of spaces —impeccably clean, almost stark—his use of light, and the psychology of his characters who are intriguely immersed in their own worlds. Another painter who has influenced me is David Hockney, in particular his series of double portraits. But probably the most important influence for me has been the work of the German choreographer Pina Bausch for her focus on human relationships and their complexities. While I lived in Cologne during my college years, I was lucky to see many of her dance theater pieces in Wuppertal, where her company is based.

MG: Many people don’t realize that you came to photography after completing advanced studies in Mathematics and a whole career in business. How did photography come to have such a prominent place in your life?

YDA: I was working in 1999 at a German insurance corporation as a mathematician, and the company had relocated me to Argentina. It was in Buenos Aires where I took my first photography classes, and I knew from the very beginning that I had found something meaningful. I had no choice but to follow my drive! I moved to the United States, completed an MFA at Rhode Island School of Design and have been making work and teaching since then. Looking back, I am myself surprised of my sense of determination because I had no idea what I was getting into, but I am very glad I switched my focus and my career because, despite the struggle of being an artist, I am much happier now.

MG: You were a Light Work Artist-in-Residence in 2009. How did you hear about the residency program, and how did your time at Light Work and subsequent exhibition and Contact Sheet 159 help shape the trajectory for Archipelago?

YDA: I had only heard good things about Light Work from friends and colleagues in the field and was very excited to be accepted into the residency program. It was one of the most productive months in my life! You and the rest of the staff are incredibly supportive, and being all artists, you can relate on a very different level to the work and the process. I was doubly honored when I was offered a show at the main gallery, and the breadth of exposure that the publication of Contact Sheet has offered to Archipelago is invaluable.

MG: How have the images in Archipelago evolved over the years as you’ve made them in terms of your approach as a director of the subjects and in the choice of the settings?

YDA: During the first years of Archipelago I shot almost exclusively indoors because I needed some structure to frame the images. In the last years I have incorporated outdoor shots, which has been challenging but also liberating. I have also switched from 4 x 5 to 5 x 7 negatives, a more rectangular format that has opened up new possibilities of how the sitters relate to the space their share. The longer I have been shooting, the more I enjoy the collaborative aspect of the work. All the sitters I work with are people I know, and although I am indeed the director of subjects and locations, I listen and watch very carefully to what they bring to the scene. I really love the magic mix between control and unpredictability in the process.

MG: And meanwhile, you continue to create new images for the series. What are your upcoming plans for the series in terms of shooting, exhibition, and publication?

YDA: I have some ideas for shooting this year, and currently I am applying for funding as they involve some traveling. A solo exhibition of my work will open next week at the Pascal Gallery at Ramapo College. Ultimately, my goal is to publish Archipelago as a book, and I hope that all the support and exposure that I have received from Light Work will help me achieve that goal.

MG: Thank you very much for the conversation about your work, Yolanda!

Images: Aron, Helen, Laura, 2008; Edith, Juan, 2007; Anabel, Paula, Clara, 2008

Jonathan Katz to speak at Light Work

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Light Work, along with Syracuse University’s Hendrick’s Chapel and LGBT Resource Center, continues the dialog about censorship, freedom of speech, and First Amendment rights by hosting a lecture by Jonathan Katz on February 7. Katz has been speaking all over the country about these issues since the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly from the National Portrait Gallery exhibition Hide/Seek, which he co-curated. Katz will speak about his experiences with the exhibition and the controversy, followed by a question and answer session that will allow the audience to directly participate in the discussion.

For those not able to attend the event, we’ll be posting a video to our website that will document the lecture and subsequent discussion.

Please help us spread the word about the event, and the importance of keeping the issue of free speech in the forefront of our national dialog, by emailing our press release to your friends, posting it to your Facebook, and telling us what you think about these issues right here in our comments.

Here is the full text of our press release about the event. You can also download it as a pdf by clicking here.

Jonathan Katz Lecture
Ending the Loud Silence: Hide/Seek the Future of Queer Exhibitions and Freedom of Speech
February 7, 2011, 6:00pm
Watson Auditorium

Light Work, Hendricks Chapel, and the LGBT Resource Center are pleased to announce a lecture by Jonathan Katz, co-curator of the important Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. Co-curated by Katz and David C. Ward, this monumental exhibition is the first to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture. The exhibition has been praised for its groundbreaking scholarship by a major museum and has drawn international attention when a video in the exhibition by David Wojnarowicz was censored and removed from the exhibition under pressure from a right wing religious group and conservative politicians.

The exhibition considers such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern America; how artists explored the fluidity of sexuality and gender; how major themes in modern art—especially abstraction—were influenced by social marginalization; and how art reflected society’s evolving and changing attitudes toward sexuality, desire, and romantic attachment. According to Blake Gopnik of The Washington Post, the exhibition features a “…fascinating world, and powerful art…” He goes on to state that, “Scholars Jonathan Katz and David Ward have mounted one of the best thematic exhibitions in years.”  According to Holland Cotter of The New York Times, “With the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, one of our federally funded museums, the National Portrait Gallery, here in the city of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ has gone where our big private museums apparently dare not tread, deep into the history of art by and about gay artists.”

The exhibition attracted international attention when Wojnarowicz’s video A Fire in My Belly was censored and removed from the exhibition by G. Wayne Clough, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, after receiving complaints from William Donohue, president of the Catholic League as well as John Boehner, Republican Speaker of the House, and Eric Cantor, Republican Majority Leader. The removal of the video from the exhibition has sparked public outcry from arts organizations and activists around the world, including the Tate Modern in London, the Whitney Museum and MOMA in New York City, and SF MOMA in San Francisco, among many others. Light Work joined these protests in early December by organizing a screening of Fire in My Belly on December 14 in collaboration with the ArtRage Gallery, which included a public forum about the work. Light Work will continue to show the video until February 13, the date the exhibition is scheduled to close in Washington, DC.

Light Work presents this event as an opportunity for Katz to discuss the process of curating this important exhibition, its significance, as well as the controversy surrounding the entire exhibition and Wojnarowicz’s video. In addition, there will be a question-and-answer session with Katz and audience members through which Light Work hopes to continue the dialogue about this exhibition, censorship, and the controversy.

Jonathan Katz, a scholar of post war art and culture from the vantage point of sexuality, is an associate professor and director of the visual studies doctoral program at SUNY Buffalo, as well as honorary research faculty at the University of Manchester, UK; and a guest curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. Known as an activist academic, Katz was the founding director of the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale University—the first queer studies program in the Ivy League—and founding chair of the very first Department of Gay and Lesbian Studies in the United States, at City College of San Francisco in 1990. He co-founded the activist group Queer Nation, San Francisco, and the San Francisco National Queer Arts Festival, and founded the Queer Caucus of the College Art Association. David C. Ward is a historian of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

The website http://hideseek.org offers an archive of information about the censorship of A Fire in My Belly as well as a growing list of arts institutions that are hosting events and screenings in support of Wojnarowicz and freedom of artistic expression.

Limited free parking for this event is available in Booth Garage—please RSVP to Light Work (315-443-1300). The event is free and open to the public. Gallery hours to view the video are Sunday to Friday, 10am–6pm, and by appointment. To schedule an appointment, please call 315-443-1300. Light Work is closed during school holidays.

Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours and gallery talks of the facility. Light Work is a non-profit, artist-run organization dedicated to the support of artists working in photography and electronic media. Light Work is a member of CMAC, the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University.

For more information, please contact Jessica H. Reed at Light Work, 315-443-1300 or jhreed01@syr.edu.

Caption: David Wojnarowicz, A Fire In My Belly (Film In Progress) and A Fire In My Belly Excerpt, 1986-87
Super 8mm film transferred to video (black and white and color, silent), 13:06 min. and 7:00 min. Courtesy of The Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W Gallery, New York and The Fales Library and Special Collections/ New York University.

In search of the Light Work Collection

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Every once and while we just like to take a spin through the Light Work Collection, searching on a term to see what it turns up. Here’s a fantastic image by Chan Chao, titled Tin Taw Liang, that came up when searching on the word democracy. Give yourself a treat on Friday afternoon (or whenever you’re reading this), do a couple of searches, and post your favorites in the comments.

Yolanda del Amo Weekend series on Flak Photo

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To help everyone get the New Year started off well, Light Work is partnering with Flak Photo publisher Andy Adams to feature work from Yolanda del Amo’s lovely Archipelago in this month’s Weekend series. The Weekend series will offer new images, content, and promos throughout the month, with posts on January 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29, so keep checking in to further explore Archipelago.

Yolanda has been a steady presence at Light Work since her residency in 2009, which was devoted in the main to working on images from Archipelago. These beautiful images were also the subject of a recent Light Work exhibition, and they are featured in Contact Sheet 159, which you can preview online here. The image Winfried, Brigitte is in the Light Work Collection, and we’re proud to offer Edith, Juan, also from Archipelago, as part of our 2011 Subscription Program.

Great to see Yolanda and her images getting more and more exposure, and thanks to Andy Adams and Flak Photo for helping to get the word out on the best of what’s happening in photography today.

—Mary Goodwin, Associate Director

In support of free speech

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As an organization whose mission is to support artists, we want to keep the heat on the protests against censorship by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and their decision to pull the video, “A Fire in My Belly” by the late artist David Wojnarowicz.

Last week Light Work collaborated with ArtRage Gallery in Syracuse to screen a full version of “Fire in My Belly” and to lead a discussion with the audience about censorship in the arts. Both Light Work and ArtRage will be showing “Fire in My Belly” in our galleries until February 13, 2011.

What was clear from our conversation was that this act of censorship was a calculated anti-American attack on the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. We find it ironic that those who want to drape themselves in the American flag as true champions of conservative ideals are the first ones to trample on our First Amendment, just because they don’t like what others use it to express.

Freedom, and especially freedom of speech, is what defines democracy in the United States. Take that away and we become Iran or North Korea. That is why those who want to censor free speech are practicing the most vehement anti-American behavior possible, and they need to be called out.

Fortunately there have been loud and widespread protests by artists, activists, and supporters of free speech across the country. We urge you to join these protests and let your voice be heard.

—Jeffrey Hoone, Executive Director

There is more information about protests across the country at hideseek.org and PPOWpallery.com. Also here are several links about a protest march in New York on December 19:

Protesters at Met Rally for Artwork | Wall Street Journal; Dec. 20, 2010
New Yorkers Protest Smithsonian Censorship | Advocate.com; Dec. 20, 2010
Protesters decry Smithsonian’s removal of controversial video | LosAngelesTimes.com; Dec. 20, 2010
NYC Protest Against Smithsonian Censorship of David Wojnarowicz Video | iReport;Dec. 19, 2010

Finally, you can join a letter writing campaign to alert your representatives and other elected officials that this type of censorship will not be tolerated in America. Click here to download the text of the letter, add the name(s) of the intended recipient(s), sign, and send.

Kitchen Table heats up

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In the past couple of days Carrie Mae Weems and the Kitchen Table series have been featured in Jim Hedges’ Artworld Gift Guide for the Holidays, a list at the Huffington Post website that highlights, “. . . real art made by recognized contemporary masters for modest prices.” Thanks to Hedges for highlighting this amazing print, available through Light Work, as well as the other fine pieces in the list, including work by Louise Bourgeois, Andy Warhol, and Kehinde Wiley, among others.

Weems also made the news yesterday when a triptych of her work from the Kitchen Table series fetched the highest price at a Christie’s auction, selling for higher than images made by Irving Penn and Ansel Adams, as reported on the Vintage Photo Forum.

Kitchen Table, Carrie Mae Weems at Art Institute of Chicago

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The Art Institute of Chicago is offering a great opportunity to see Carrie Mae Weems’ Kitchen Table Series in its entirety. Starting tomorrow night at 5pm, the 20-image series, widely held as a masterpiece of performance and story-telling within the photographic frame, will be on view in AIC’s Gallery 292. The images were presented to the AIC as a promised gift by Liz and Eric Lefkofsky earlier this year in March, and the installation will be on view for six months until June 5, 2011. Carrie Mae Weems gives a lecture about the series tomorrow night starting at 6pm followed by a gallery viewing until 8pm. If you’re in Chicago tomorrow night, this is definitely an event to put on your list.

In Kitchen Table, Weems uses a subtle vocabulary of props, gesture, and gaze to frame complex questions about identity, gender construction, representation, parenthood, and the nature of human relationships. The nonlinear narrative and issues presented in this work remain as topical and thought-provoking today as when the images were first created in the early 1990s.

Fans of the Kitchen Table Series and Carrie Mae Weems should know that the Light Work 2011 Subscription program features the image Untitled (Woman and Daughter with Make-up), a hand-printed silver gelatin print in a numbered edition of 100.  Click here for more information and to purchase.

Stay tuned . . .

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We’re getting ready to reveal some amazing new offerings here at Light Work! Today we wanted to give you a sneak peek of our new website and tell you a little about the new things we’ll be rolling out in late November, including:

• A whole new website, better looking and better functioning.

• A totally redesigned blog with all new features and giveaways.

• Several exciting new subscription options.

• Many new can’t-do-without-them prints and books in our store to launch the 2011 Subscription Program.

We’ll be telling you more soon!

Bill Viola public video in Syracuse

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Bill Viola’s video The Quintet of the Astonished (2000) graces the facade of the Everson Museum of Art in downtown Syracuse. This beautiful and emotionally charged video is the first installation at the Everson, the newest projection site for Light Work/Urban Video Project. The Quintet of the Astonished shows the unfolding expressions of five actors in such extreme slow motion that every minute detail of their changing facial expressions and movements can be detected. In this piece Viola explores the cathartic power within grief, personal suffering, and bereavement. A second work by the artist, Two Women (2008), is on view at the UVP site on the side of the Onondaga Historical Association. Both works will be on view through October 31, 2010, and Viola will be in conversation with David Ross at the Everson on October 14 at 7:30pm. For now, enjoy these gorgeous views (click to enlarge)!

Bill Viola
The Quintet of the Astonished, 2000
Video installation
Performers: John Malpede, Weba Garretson, Tom Fitzpatrick, John Fleck, Dan Gerrity
Photo: Kira Perov
Installation photo: Steve Sartori