Pipo Nguyen-duy: East of Eden: Vietnam

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Pipo Nguyen-duy–East of Eden: Vietnam
Exhibition Dates: Through December 23, 2010
Lecture: November 17, 6:00pm

Light Work is pleased to invite you to view East of Eden: Vietnam featuring photographs by Pipo Nguyen-duy. These large-format color photographs bear witness to scars on the landscape and its people, caused by the Vietnam/American War.

To create East of Eden: Vietnam, Nguyen-duy traveled across Vietnam on a moped looking for war survivors—both afflicted civilians and amputee ex-combatants—and photographed them against the idyllic Southeast Asian landscape.

According to Sam Lee Gallery, “In East of Eden: Vietnam, Nguyen-duy has not veered far from his signature art practice, focusing on producing images that employ a blend of documentation and performance. Using the landscape as a post-apocalyptic ‘Eden,’ Nguyen-duy points out the horrific evidence of violent conflict and also focuses on the persistence of the human spirit. Each image conjures a narrative that hints at the past but also looks to the future.”

Pipo Nguyen-duy was born in Hue, Vietnam. Growing up within thirty kilometers of the Demilitarized Zone of the 18th Parallel, he describes hearing gunfire every day of his early life. In 1975 he immigrated to the United States as a political refugee. Nguyen-duy has taken on many things in life in pursuit of his diverse interests. As a teenager in Vietnam, he competed as a national athlete in table tennis. He also spent some time during the mid Eighties living as a Buddhist monk in Northern India. In 1983 he earned a BA in economics at Carleton College. He then moved to New York City where he worked as a bartender and later as a nightclub manager. While living in the East Village in the Eighties, or as Nguyen-duy describes, “the crux of creativity in New York,” and meeting people such as musician Don Cherry and artist Keith Haring, his interests turned to art. In 1992 he earned a MA in Photography, followed by a MFA in Photography in 1995, both from the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. He participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program in 2004 and was featured in an exhibition in the Light Work Main Gallery in 2006.

Light Work will feature a lecture by the artist on Wednesday, November 17 at 6:00pm. This exhibition and lecture are co-sponsored by the 2010 Syracuse Symposium and the Co-Curricular Fund from the Division of Student Affairs at Syracuse University.

Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours and gallery talks of the exhibition and 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 Heckman at Light Work, 315-443-1300 or jhheckma@syr.edu.

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!

Yolanda del Amo: Archipelago

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Yolanda del Amo–Archipelago
Exhibition Dates: November 1–December 22, 2010
Gallery Reception: November 4, 5:00–7:00pm

Powerful forces deep below the surface of the earth form archipelagos, which are chains or clusters of individual islands. In her series Archipelago, artist Yolanda del Amo depicts the powerful forces between people—their conflicting needs for intimacy and connection, independence and individuality. In Archipelago, these competing needs seem to have reached a peaceful if temporary stasis. These beautiful images show people who, although in the presence of another, appear surrounded on all sides not by water but by silence.

Del Amo leaves the relationships of her subjects to each other deliberately vague, which makes her images all the more universal and compelling. Each photograph represents a fragile time in any relationship when two people—whether they are mother and son, husband and wife, or simply friends—momentarily live alone, together.

Archipelago will be accompanied by a 48-page exhibition catalogue, Contact Sheet 159, featuring thirty-eight color reproductions of del Amo’s work. Contact Sheet 159 will be published in November 2010. del Amo’s image Edith, Juan will be featured in Light Work’s 2010 Fine Print Program, also available in November 2010.

Del Amo was born in Madrid. She received a BS and MS in mathematics from the Universität zu Köln in Cologne, Germany, and an MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous venues, including the National Portrait Gallery both in London and in Washington, DC; the Instituto Cervantes, New York City; Hudson Franklin Gallery, New York City, Barbara Walters Gallery at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York; the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea in Barcelona, Spain; and the Palais de Glace in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Del Amo was a resident fellow at the Spanish Academy in Rome in 2010, and previous residences include Light Work; the Terra Foundation for American Art in Giverny, France; and the Lower Manhattan Culture Council in New York City. She is currently an assistant professor of photography at Ramapo College of New Jersey.

Also on view at this time is the Light Work Grants in Photography exhibition, featuring photographs by 2010 grant recipients Yasser Aggour, Ron Jude, and Lida Suchy. Gallery hours for these exhibitions are Sunday to Friday, 10am–6pm, and by appointment. To schedule an appointment, please call 315-443-1300. Both the exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in the Marion Parking Lot and Booth Garage.

Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours and gallery talks of the exhibition and 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 Heckman at Light Work, 315-443-1300 or jhheckma@syr.edu.