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Light Work Receives Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation

June 22, 2015/in News

Light Work is pleased to announce that we have been awarded a $100,000 grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The award will be distributed over two years, and contribute to the success of Light Work’s renowned residency and exhibition programs offering support and visibility to emerging and under-recognized artists working in photography and image-based media.

In total, 48 organizations will receive over $3.7 million in support of scholarly exhibitions, publications, and visual arts programming, including artist residencies and new commissions. Light Work would like to extend our congratulations to all of the other organizations making great contributions in our field.

For more on the selected organizations and projects receiving funding read the online announcement and browse the the Awarded Grants page.

Light Work Lab Renovation

May 29, 2015/in Lab, News

From June 15 through July 15, 2015, Light Work Lab is undergoing renovation. Below is a letter from Light Work Lab Manager Walker Blackwell addressing many exciting changes, limited space closings during the renovation, and more.

—

Dear Light Work Lab Community,

I’m writing you with some exciting news! Light Work Lab is undergoing a much anticipated renovation. Following this, our little lab founded over 40 years ago and housed at Syracuse University will continue as the best community-access lab in the world.

Renovations begin on June 15, 2015 with an anticipated completion date of July 15, 2015. Please see below for more details, including information on room closings during the month-long renovation. Be sure to follow our Facebook and Twitter streams for updates on the progress of the renovation and more.

Q: What does this renovation mean long term?

A: Tons. Printing and scanning workflows get streamlined, physical workspace gets re-arranged, upgraded lighting throughout, new computers and printers, more magnetic-wall space, flat-file storage for the community, all lab furniture goes mobile to allow for expanded programming, and so much more. We’ll post all these new amazing things that members have access to at lightwork.org/lab over the next month.

After a long period of consideration and thought we’ll be decommissioning the developing labs and large darkroom for many reasons that we explain below. Fear not! The advanced darkroom will always exist for community use, as well as sinks in multiple locations. We’re confident this is the right decision and are happy to answer any questions you might have.

(Too much to handle? Walker’s direct google voice cellphone number is 802.821.4451 if this causes you panic and you need to ask questions immediately.)

Q: What does this mean in the short term (now through July 15)?

A: If you have a backlog of B&W film to develop and print analogue, now is the time to get rolling! Have you been waiting for a reason to organize a group photogram party? This is your opportunity. Come in and say your goodbyes to the large darkroom before June 10th. After renovation our advanced darkroom will be open for business (you can reserve it now by calling 315.443.1300).

From June 15 to July 15 the large workroom (where cutting tables are currently located), lighting studio, and darkrooms will be closed. During the renovation all lockers will be converted to roller lockers. We’ll box the locker contents, number the boxes, and make them fully accessible to their owners for that month of construction.

The large cutting tables are temporarily moving to the hallway near the open lab, so they will still be accessible (but cozy). Scanners are moving to the open lab, Artist-in-Residence studios, and service lab. The renovation will not impact people working digitally very much, though getting around during the renovation is going to be a bit tight.

Q: Why are you taking away the developing lab and large darkroom?

A: This decision was difficult and not made lightly. The advanced darkroom is not going anywhere, and will maintain full functionality forever. We’ll still offer Intro to the Dark Arts sessions and will be maintaining sinks in our larger project spaces. We will always be committed to film photography. The only difference is now darkroom access requires a reservation by calling 315.443.1300. This is the same process currently in place for the lighting studio.

Darkroom usage has dropped over the past several years and that space can be used in better ways. We attribute this to a few reasons: silver film/paper is now very expensive, consumables are hard to find in this area (MQ Camera closing, etc), and inkjet printers are now very high quality. And finally, our digital workflow is advanced enough to support a true transition now that we have a Piezography K7 monochrome print system (developed in-house, by the way).

We are very excited to usher Light Work into a new era of improved productivity, service, and technical and creative excellence. We have a small space for what we do, and we want to use every square foot.

Q: What is physically changing at Light Work? Will I recognize the place?

A: Yes! We’re not tearing out that many walls, but we are dramatically reorganizing our space to streamline workflow. It’s a fun project. The equipment and where people work is changing.

We are also really excited about upgrading the lighting in the lab. We are installing gallery/museum spec 5000k LED bulbs with special violet phosphors, 60 degree beam spreader lenses, and 4200k warming filters. The light will be nothing but revolutionary. All fluorescents will be kept off. Yay!

Q: What else can we look forward to with the renovation?

A: Following construction, we plan on hosting Saturday digital intro classes in the open lab in addition to our ongoing Sessions. Printing, cutting, and other production related activities will take place in the new, large production room. This switch will open up the space for education and help us support members by providing better access to front-desk and service staff. This is a huge improvement from our current layout where members work almost 80 feet away from the nearest staff member who can help them. With printers, gallery lights, magnet walls, cutters, and flat-files closer to each other, everything is easier to do. New flat-files will facilitate large-format print storage for the community. From scanning to storage, Light Work Lab has you covered.

We are thrilled about the expanded potential for serving as an improved site for community art events, happenings, and more in Syracuse. The space will be accessible and lit well-enough for any member to have a studio or curatorial visit, or to host a critique group, etc. Because lab furniture will be on wheels, all tables/lockers/printers will be able to roll out at a moment’s notice making space for lectures, experimental workshops, portfolio reviews, movie nights, art performances, and more.

We at Light Work Lab are incredibly excited for this renovation and the potential it brings for the art community in Syracuse. We look forward to seeing more of you soon!

All the best,
Walker Blackwell
Manager, Light Work Lab

“What is She Doing There?”:
Susan Lipper on Kristine Potter

May 14, 2015/in Etc.

The Light Work blog is excited to present this reflection by Susan Lipper, recent Guggenheim Fellow and 2004 Light Work Artist-in-Residence, on the work of Kristine Potter, 2014 Light Work Artist-in-Resident. Both graduates of the Yale Photography MFA program and women photographers working out West, it is a unique pleasure to read Lipper’s words on Potter’s images.

—

In thinking about Kristine Potter’s fascinating Manifest series, Gertrude Stein’s off-quoted phrase “there is no there there” came to mind: that beyond our looking at these exquisitely crafted images, taken over three years on the Western Slope of Colorado, both portraits and landscapes, we are also looking at a fantasy of a fantasy.

The artist has undertaken to flip some of our most persistent cultural tropes: America, a woman alone on the road, the West, wilderness, and the state of man in nature. She has also consciously deployed a motif (dear to me) of the subjective documentary approach, where beyond that being depicted, we are also expected to consider the identity of the photographer. At the very least, it seems integral to the reading of this work to know the photographer is a woman. (Even if we weren’t told the gender of the photographer, these images of men don’t look like the work of a peer’s or at least someone they have no romantic interest in, as evidenced by many of their telling gazes.)

Garrett from Manifest, 2013

Summer Landscape (Sun’s Camouflage), 2013

Summer Landscape (Sun’s Camouflage) from Manifest, 2013

In addition, this work is interesting because as a woman and photographer, I cannot help but question the imagined personal risk involved in manufacturing these works with all the necessary transaction involved with sitters both pre- and post-portrait session. (In general though the perceived effort behind the making of an image does not sway me.) In reviews of this work I’ve read written by men, this topic is not broached. Perhaps I am reading too much, but the question constantly returns: “What is she doing there?” Why this ongoing playing with chance that the shooting of a portrait in presumed isolated locations with strangers (who are mostly unaware of the art context and perhaps confused by the initial invitation to be photographed) will go as planned and negotiated? This is not to say that the risk taking isn’t completely admirable.

Dean from Manifest, 2013

Then, finally, who are these pictures for? Who is the intended audience? Not that it matters because the work is formally rich enough to transcend such divisions. However, I feel we are looking at more than an August Sander–esque documentary series of the Western male archetypes at a particular point in time; we are also looking at a double-sided portrait, containing both an investigation and a projection, where we imagine the self-image of the photographer as some kind of solitary huntress–perhaps lion tamer–and evidence and celebration of a new brand of feminism.

As we follow the artist’s journeys from the “cultivated” East to “wild” West from the cadets of West Point in her 2010 The Gray Line series, to the different uniformed personas of the cowboy and loner in Manifest, we sense an increased risk of personal danger due to these new uncharted and semi-lawless subjects. Her journey perhaps mirrors the once-cherished Manifest Destiny myth where personal heroics ensured our American right to prevail.

Pancho Outlaw from Manifest, 2014

Spring Landscape (No Way In/Out) from Manifest, 2014

More to the point, I suspect that the photographer, like many of us steeped in the evolving face of patriarchy, is rethinking that grand nostalgic notion. Accordingly the Manifest series intentionally and necessarily aims to record the changing reality versus the well-trodden mythology of the West. Perhaps this is where the truncated but still beautiful landscapes come into play–not that I doubt that Romantic nineteenth-century vistas were also plentiful.

In any case the men depicted here, despite their rugged individuality, do not seem up to the task of discovering/rescuing America. Further, it appears that even our distinct concept of America as an isolated country is fading. How is the country to be seen as actually quarantined from the rest of humanity forced to heed the prevailing forces of global economics and capitalism? So much of the previous search for heroes seems like closing the stable door after the horse has left. Realistically our hopes should probably no longer be with the individual, no matter how much he is like the film character Crocodile Dundee, victorious both in the Outback as well as among the powered elite.

Winter Landscape (spots) from Manifest, 2014

Potter has assembled her male subjects almost as if they were reverse film noir character heroes bathed in western light. However, while they are empathically portrayed, their personal space is intentionally constrained and mostly there is nowhere for them, the artist or viewer to go, which is both symbolic and a breeding ground for confrontation. Admirably these men wish to retain their otherness and resist being commoditized. This friction endows each portrait with an electric charge. So much so that in one of her almost set-like shallow landscapes, Winter Landscape (spots), 2014, I persist in reading the trace of a bullet hole piercing “the surface” of dense vegetation.

—

Susan Lipper is a New York based artist. She received her B.A. in English Literature from Skidmore College in 1975 and her MFA in Photography from Yale University in 1983. Among the monographs on her work are Bed and Breakfast, 2000; trip, 1999; and GRAPEVINE, 1994. Lipper is represented, amongst other places, in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship. She was a 2004 Artist-in-Residence at Light Work. She is currently working on an ongoing project in the California desert as the final chapter in a trilogy of her travels from East to West.

Kristine Potter was born in Dallas, Texas and lives and works in New York City. She earned both a BFA in Photography and a BA in Art History at the University of Georgia in 2000. From 2000 – 2003 Kristine lived and worked as a professional printer in Paris, France. In 2005 she earned her MFA in Photography from Yale University. Potter’s work has been exhibited in Paris, New York City, Miami, Atlanta and Raleigh, NC. Her work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Georgia Museum of Art, and has been recently featured on Hyperallergic.com, HAFNY.org, among others. She is represented by Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York City, where she exhibited her 2015 solo show, Manifest.

Light Work’s Guggenheim Fellows

April 29, 2015/in News

Light Work would like to wish a hearty congratulations to our Light Work family members Susan Lipper, Arno Rafael Minkkinen & Stuart Rome on being named 2015 Guggenheim Fellows. The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation’s annual Guggenheim Fellowships are awarded to men and women who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. Lipper was Light Work’s September 2004 Artist-in-Residence. Minkkinen was one of Light Work’s first exhibiting artists in 1973, and a contributor to our 2009 Platinum Editions Program. Rome was among Light Work’s first Artists-in-Residence in 1978 and a participant in Light Work: Photography over the 70s and 80s, Light Work’s 1985 retrospective, touring exhibition which opened at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY.

Over Light Work’s 42 year history, 28 of our Artists-in-Residence and exhibiting artists have received the Guggenheim Fellowship including Dawoud Bey, Doug DuBois, John Gossage, Elijah Gowin, Deana Lawson, Osamu James Nakagawa, Suzanne Opton, Christian Patterson, Mark Steinmetz, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Cindy Sherman & more. We are humbled and honored to have helped facilitate time, space, and resources for so many of these artists early in–and throughout–their careers. We are proud to be part of this history.

Below, we present all of Light Work’s Guggenheim Fellows and the fine prints, books, and Contact Sheet volumes featuring their work. Consider supporting Light Work’s mission by making a purchase of works by these world-renowned artists. Search all of our offerings at lightwork.org/shop.

2015 Guggenheim Fellows:
Susan Lipper, Arno Rafael Minkkinen & Stuart Rome

Susan Lipper
Contact Sheet 132: Light Work Annual 2005
Paperback: 80 pages
Publisher: Light Work (July, 2005)
ISBN: 0-935445-42-0
$27

A collection of work produced by the Light Work Artists-in-Residence and the Light Work Grant Recipients with accompanying essays. Includes the work of Pipo Nguyen-duy, Bharti Parmar, Tone Stockenstrom, Myra Greene, Matthew Swarts, Stephen Hughes, Alex Harsley, Scott Townsend, Wayne Barrar, Susan Lipper, and Jonathan Moller. Also included are the Light Work Grant recipients Harry Littell and Lois Barden, Mark Hemendinger, and Barry Perlus.

View Contact Sheet 132: Light Work Annual 2005, featuring Susan Lipper

Arno Rafael Minkkinen
The Roots of the River I, 2008
Platinum print, 5 x 14″ on 11 x 17″ paper
Shipped in an 14 x 18″ mat
Edition of 50 (unnumbered), signed by the artist
$500

Featuring himself as the main actor on the vast stage of nature, Minkkinen’s photographs bend, twist, and immerse the body back into its primal settings. His masterful use of line, texture, and composition create isolated moments that reestablish a harmonious relationship between mankind and the ground, water, and flora that feed and nurture its corporality and spirit. In images such as Paper, Scissor, Rock, Minkkinen and the exact locations of the exposures remain anonymous, making possible a global expression of humanity’s eternal place in the organic order.

This edition was produced by renowned platinum printer Sal Lopes on 100% rag paper.

View this print by Arno Rafael Minkkinen

Stuart Rome
Contact Sheet 5
Publisher: Light Work (1979)
$12

Contact Sheet 5 features work by artists Chris Enos, Les Krims, Lynn McMahill, Suzanne Mitchell, Ted Orland, Stuart Rome, Juliana Swatko. It also features work by the 1978 Light Work Grant recipients David Broda, Mima Cataldo, Lucinda Devlin, and Richard Laughlin.

Artists included: David Broda, Mima Cataldo, Lucinda Devlin, Chris Enos, Les Krims, Richard Laughlin, Lynn McMahill, Suzanne Mitchell, Ted Orland, Stuart Rome, Juliana Swatko.

View this Contact Sheet featuring Stuart Rome

Other items featuring Stuart Rome:
Contact Sheet 97: Light Work Annual 1998 (25th Anniversary Edition)

Previous Light Work Guggenheim Fellows:

Dawoud Bey
Jason, from The Eatonville Portfolio, 2003
Pigmented inkjet print with text, 11 x 11″
$1,200
Special Note: This is the last portfolio remaining of this special, limited edition.

This strikingly beautiful, one-of-a-kind boxed set includes all four prints from the Eatonville Series with signed photographs by Dawoud Bey, Lonnie Graham, Carrie Mae Weems, and Deborah Willis. All four prints are matted and ready for framing or archival storage. The limited edition was created expressly for Light Work, following a photographic survey of Eatonville, FL, home of celebrated writer Zora Neale Hurston. The images capture a unique view of the oldest black incorporated town in the United States.

The special offer includes a back issue of Contact Sheet 124, featuring the to the Embracing Eatonville exhibition.

View The Eatonville Portfolio, featuring Jason by Dawoud Bey

Other items featuring Dawoud Bey:
Contact Sheet 51 (SOLD OUT)
Contact Sheet 53
Contact Sheet 124: Embracing Eatonville
Contact Sheet 152: Light Work Annual 2009
Contact Sheet 173: 40 Artists 40 Years
Five Children, Syracuse, NY, 1985 by Dawoud Bey (SOLD OUT)

Scott Connaroe
Trailer Park, Wendover, UT, 2008
Archival inkjet print, 8 x 10″ on 11 x 14″ paper
Shipped in a 14 x 18″ mat
Edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist
$300

In his series By Rail, artist Scott Conarroe evokes a sense of adventure and beauty inspired by the sight of train tracks. In this project, started in 2005, Conarroe drove to points all over North America to photograph what remains of a system that once connected cities, people, and their lives. Made mostly at dawn, the images in By Rail offer a graceful nostalgia for a mythical pioneer past that long ago gave way to the lure of the automobile.

Conarroe’s photographs have been shown widely, including exhibitions at Art Gallery of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario; Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto, Ontario; and The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto, Ontario. Conarroe was a Light Work Artist-in-Residence in 2008.

View this print by Scott Connaroe

Other items featuring Scott Connaroe:
Contact Sheet 152: Light Work Annual 2009

Doug DuBois
My Mother in the Backyard, Oldwick, NJ, 2000
Archival inkjet print, 12 x 9.5″ on 14 x 11″ paper
Shipped in a 18 x 14″ mat
Edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist
$300

Doug DuBois has photographed his family for over twenty-five years, following the seasons of happy and sorrowful moments. His book …all the days and nights featuring this and sixty-one other images in the series, is the result of decades-long observation, during which DuBois’ family experienced many joyous occasions and devastating losses.

View this print by Doug DuBois

Other items featuring Doug DuBois:
Contact Sheet 137: Light Work Annual 2006
…all the days and nights by Doug DuBois (SOLD OUT)

Jason Eskenazi
Contact Sheet 177: Light Work Annual 2014
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Light Work (July 1, 2014)
ISBN: 935445-89-7
$27

Contact Sheet 177: Light Work Annual 2014 features work produced by the 2013 Light Work Artists-in-Residence Brijesh Patel, Alexandra Demenkova, George Gittoes, John D. Freyer, Jason Eskenazi, Anouk Kruithof, Dani Leventhal, Karolina Karlic, Cecil McDonald Jr., Matt Eich, Jo Ann Walters, Ofer Wolberger, and Eric Gottesman. The publication also includes work by 2013 Light Work Grant Recipients Janice Levy, Jared Landberg, and Laura Heyman, as well as recap of the year of Urban Video Project (UVP) exhibitions. Featuring texts by Jeffrey Hoone, Mark Sealy, Hannah Frieser, Nancy Keefe Rhodes, Christine Hill, Laura De Marco, David Oresick, Sally Stein, Tempestt Hazel, Rachel Somerstein, Laura Wexler, Carmen Winant, Dagmawi Woubshet, JP Gardner, and Anneka Herre.

View Contact Sheet 177: Light Work Annual 2014

LaToya Ruby Frazier
The Notion of Family
Interview by Dawoud Bey
Essays by Laura Wexler and Dennis C. Dickerson
Aperture, 2014
Hardcover, 156 pages with 100 duotone images and 32 four-color video stills
ISBN: 978-1-59711-248-2
First Edition, Signed by the artist
SOLD OUT

In this, her first book, LaToya Ruby Frazier offers an incisive exploration of the legacy of racism and economic decline in America’s small towns, as embodied by her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. The work also considers the impact of that decline on the community and on her family, creating a statement both personal and truly political-an intervention in the histories and narratives of the region. Frazier has compellingly set her story of three generations-her Grandma Ruby, her mother, and herself-against larger questions of civic belonging and responsibility. The work documents her own struggles and interactions with family and the expectations of community, and includes the documentation of the demise of Braddock’s only hospital, reinforcing the idea that the history of a place is frequently written on the body as well as the landscape. With The Notion of Family, Frazier knowingly acknowledges and expands upon the traditions of classic black-and-white documentary photography, enlisting the participation of her family-and her mother in particular. As Frazier says, her mother is “coauthor, artist, photographer, and subject. Our relationship primarily exists through a process of making images together. I see beauty in all her imperfections and abuse.” In the creation of these collaborative works, Frazier reinforces the idea of art and image-making as a transformative act, a means of resetting traditional power dynamics and narratives, both those of her family and those of the community at large.

View this book by LaToya Ruby Frazier

John Gossage
The Code
Harper’s Books, 2012
Hardbound, 144 pages with 120 four-color reproductions
Limited edition of 1,000
Signed by the artist
$75

A collection of color photographs shot in and around Tokyo. While Gossage’s trademark celebration of the banal is certainly on display here, the photographer charts new territory with shots of Tokyo street scenes, skyscapes and tissue boxes.

View this book by John Gossage

Other items featuring John Gossage:
Monumentenbricke, 1982 by John Gossage (SOLD OUT)
Contact Sheet 129: John Gossage
Contact Sheet 173: 40 Artists 40 Years
Contact Sheet 50

Elijah Gowin
Cup, 2002
Archival inkjet print, 12 x 12″ on 14 x 14″ paper
Shipped in a 20 x 16″ mat
Edition of 25, signed and numbered by the artist
$450

This image comes from Elijah Gowin’s series Hymnal of Dreams (1994-2004), in which his beloved aunt Margaret Cooper is featured prominently in dreamlike and whimsically constructed scenes. Gowin uses photography to speak about ritual, landscape, and memory. Both images from Light Work’s Master Print Edition were included in the book Maggie.

Elijah Gowin’s photographs have been exhibited internationally. His work is represented in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Center for Creative Photography, among others. He participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program in 1998. In 2008 he received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. Other awards include a Puffin Foundation Grant, the Charlotte Street Foundation Award, a fellowship from the Silver Eye Center for Photography, and more. Gowin is represented by the Robert Mann Gallery in New York, NY, and the Dolphin Gallery in Kansas City, MO.

View this print by Elijah Gowin

Other items featuring Elijah Gowin:
Child’s Dress in Tree Trunk, 1997 by Elijah Gowin
Contact Sheet 102: Light Work Annual 1999
Maggie by Emmet and Elijah Gowin (SOLD OUT)

Gregory Halpern
Contact Sheet 182: Light Work Annual 2015
Pre-Order

Subscribe now to receive the forthcoming Light Work Annual and one year subscription to Contact Sheet featuring work by all of Light Work’s 2014 Artists-in-Residence, Exhibitions, and more.

View Contact Sheet subscription

Karolina Karlic
Contact Sheet 177: Light Work Annual 2014
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Light Work (July 1, 2014)
ISBN: 935445-89-7
$27

View Contact Sheet 177: Light Work Annual 2014

Mark Klett
Self portrait with Saguaro about my same age, Pinacate Sonora 10/29/99, 1999
Platinum print, 8 x 10″ on 10 x 12″ paper
Shipped in a 14 x 18″ mat
Edition of 100 (unnumbered), signed by the artist
$450

“The photo was made in Mexico at Pinacate, their first nature reserve. The time was dawn, and my shadow was raking across the top of the cider cone I had climbed. I noticed that I could project it onto a small saguaro cactus, and did so for the picture. Saguaros are the symbol of the Sonoran Desert in this part of Mexico and my home state of Arizona just a few dozen miles to the north. Saguaros may grow to be 30 or 40 feet tall and live over two hundred years. This cactus was relatively young, about my same age though much younger in saguaro years than I was in human years. It was a reflection of differing perceptions of time, of life and the land.” – Mark Klett

View this print by Mark Klett

Other items featuring Mark Klett:
Contact Sheet 44 (SOLD OUT)

Deana Lawson
Coulson Family, 2008
Archival inkjet print, 7.5 x 10″ on 11 x 14″ paper
Shipped in a 14 x 18″ mat
Edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist
$300

At first glance, Deana Lawson’s images have a seemingly straightforward quality that dissolves into a complex set of questions about representation of the self, the construction of notions of beauty, and the nature of photographing – questions that will never have clear and finite answers, no matter how hard and long we look.

Lawson has received numerous awards, such as fellowships with the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and the Aaron Siskind Foundation. Her work has been exhibited at venues like the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta, GA, and Collette Blanchard Gallery in New York City. Lawson was a Light Work Artist-in-Residence in 2008.

View this print by Deana Lawson

Other items featuring Deana Lawson:
Contact Sheet 154: Deana Lawson
Contact Sheet 152: Light Work Annual 2009

Helen Levitt
Contact Sheet 51
Publisher: Light Work (1986)
SOLD OUT

Artists included: Dawoud Bey, John Dziadecki, Helen Levitt, Scott McCarney, Sheila Pinkel.

View Contact Sheet 51

Andrea Modica
Treadwell, New York, 2001
Platinum print, 7.5 x 9.5″ on 9 x 12″ paper
Shipped in a 14 x 18″ mat
Edition of 50 (unnumbered), signed by the artist
$450

In all of Andrea Modica’s photographs something is slightly askew. The full activity of every frame is never entirely revealed, nor ever completely concealed. Focus shifts from back to front and side to side. Hands obscure faces, and torsos stretch out of the frame or only appear in the background as distant details. Even when she abandons the devices of framing and focus to throw us off center, she can achieve the same results with the clarity of her juxtapositions, like the image of a young boy holding the severed tail of a goat. In these moments, and they occur throughout her work, Modica creates open-ended narratives where fact and fiction are merged and blurred in order to show us the rough edges of experience where uncertainty and caution meet anticipation and hope.

View this print by Andrea Modica

Other items featuring Andrea Modica:
Contact Sheet 11: Andrea Modica
Contact Sheet 77

Osamu James Nakagawa
Belly Button, Bloomington, Indiana, Summer 1999
Silver gelatin print, 8.5 x 8.5″ on 14 x 11″
Shipped in an 18 x 14″ mat
Edition of 40, signed and numbered by the artist
$300

Osamu James Nakagawa received a MFA from the University of Houston and is an associate professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Nakagawa is a recipient of the 2009 John Simon Guggenheim fellowship and 2010 Higashikawa A New Photographer Award in Japan.

View this print by Osamu James Nakagawa

Other items featuring Osamu James Nakagawa:
Contact Sheet 122: Light Work Annual 2003

Pipo Nguyen-duy
The Walk Home, 2003
Archival inkjet print, 7 x 8.75″ on 8 x 10″ paper
Shipped in a 14 x 18″ mat
Edition of 50 (unnumbered), signed by the artist
$300

Pipo Nguyen-duy’s photographs are as emotionally moving as they are beautiful. His photography stems from the traditional style of landscape painting. According to Jennie Hirsh, his “reliance on the natural world as a theatrical apparatus uncovers collisions between nature and culture, past and present, in carefully crystallized visions that inscribe themselves onto classical Western visions of the (un)natural world.” His photographs hold references to mythology and history, and capture a thought-provoking vision of the American landscape and people.

His photographic style has been greatly influenced by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Before the attacks, his work was more focused on the “back-story” of the landscapes he photographed, while the work is now focused more on reality and what is happening in the present. According to Stephen Borys, his work “shows us a landscape developing, changing, retreating and advancing-a land of multiple hues and conditions.”

View this print by Pipo Nguyen-duy

Other items featuring Pipo Nguyen-duy:
Contact Sheet 173: 40 Years 40 Artists
Contact Sheet 135: Pipo Nguyen-duy
Contact Sheet 132: Light Work Annual 2005

Suzanne Opton
Soldier / Many Wars
DECODE Books, 2011
Signed book, limited edition of 1,500
104 pages, hardbound, 9.5 x 12″ with 39 four-color reproductions
$65

Portrait photographer Suzanne Opton’s latest monograph Soldier / Many Wars reflects a curiosity about the military at a time of war. Focusing her lens on soldiers who recently returned from their tour of duty in Iraq, her images are both emotionally and politically poignant. “It is not sensationalism I am after. I am after the human being,” writes Opton.

View this book by Suzanne Opton

Other items featuring Suzanne Opton:
Contact Sheet 136: Suzanne Opton (SOLD OUT)
Contact Sheet 137: Light Work Annual 2006
Soldier Conklin: 272 days in Iraq, 2006 by Susan Opton (SOLD OUT)

Christian Patterson
Prairie Grass Leak, 2009
Archival inkjet print, 8 x 10″ on 8.125 x 10.125″ paper
Shipped unmatted, with framing recommendation from the artist
Edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist
$300

Christian Patterson is a self-taught artist, born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Photographs are the heart of Patterson’s work, sometimes accompanied by drawings, paintings and readymade objects.

Prarie Grass Leak comes from Patterson’s recent project, Redheaded Peckerwood. The project utilizes a true crime story as the basis of a visual crime dossier, a cryptic collection of clues for the viewer to decipher. The project utilizes a multitude of photographic techniques to re-tell a tragic story from the past. It is exhibited with documents and objects related to the story.

Patterson’s Redheaded Peckerwood was published as a monograph by MACK in 2011 to critical international acclaim, was nominated for the 2012 Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards, won the prestigious 2012 Rencontres d’Arles Author Book Award, and is now in its third printing. In 2013 he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Patterson is represented by Rose Gallery in Santa Monica, CA and Robert Morat in Hamburg and Berlin, Germany. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Patterson participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program in May 2010.

View this print by Christian Patterson

Other items featuring Christian Patterson:
Redheaded Peckerwood by Christian Patterson
Contact Sheet 162: Light Work Annual 2011

Alessandra Sangunetti
On the Sixth Day
Nazraeli Press, 2005
Clothbound, 80 pages with 61 color reproductions, 12.9 x 12.1″
Signed by the artist
SOLD OUT

Sanguinetti’s vivid photographs depict the coexistence of people and animals in an arrestingly honest portrayal. Her photographs reveal and describe with clarity the rituals and traditions of the local farmers whose lives interweave with a host of domestic animals caught in the cycle that is life and death.

View this book by Alessandra Sanguinetti

Other items featuring Alessandra Sanguinetti:
Contact Sheet 120: Alessandra Sangunetti (SOLD OUT)
Contact Sheet 122: Light Work Annual 2003
Contact Sheet 173: 40 Artists 40 Years

Fazal Sheikh
Ramadan Moon
International Human Rights Series, 2001
Hardcover, 64 pages with 31 tritone images
ISBN 0-9707613-1-7

A Camel for the Son
International Human Rights Series, 2001
Hardcover, 128 pages with 79 duotone images
ISBN 0-9707613-0-9
$45

Ramadan Moon and A Camel for the Son are the first two books in the International Human Rights Series (IHRS) and are intended as companion volumes. The IHRS was established by Fazal Sheikh in 2001 in order to further the understanding of complex human rights issues with which he was involved and to disseminate his projects in a variety of accessible forms to a wide international public.

* Note: Only unsigned copies are available.

View these books by Fazal Sheikh

Other items featuring Fazal Sheikh:
Contact Sheet 82
Contact Sheet 173: 40 Artists 40 Years

Cindy Sherman
Contact Sheet 173: 40 Artists / 40 Years
Paperback: 48 pages
Publisher: Light Work (October 1, 2013)
ISBN: 935445-85-4
$12

Contact Sheet 173: 40 Artists / 40 Years marks Light Work’s 40th Anniversary and is released in conjunction with the exhibition 40 Artists / 40 Years: Selections from the Light Work Collection.

Complete list of artists: Andrew Buck (1973), Arnold Gassan (1974), Clarence John Laughlin (1975), Charles Gatewood (1976), Roger Mertin (1977), Barbara Houghton (1978), Kenda North (1979), Ellen Carey (1980), Cindy Sherman (1981), James Casebere (1982), Jim Goldberg (1983), John Gossage (1984), Dawoud Bey (1985), James Welling (1986), Marilyn Nance (1987), Carrie Mae Weems (1988), Clarissa Sligh (1989), Jim Pomeroy (1990), Antony Gleaton (1991), Willie Middlebrook (1992), Fazal Sheikh (1993), Elise Mitchel Sanford (1994), Max Becher & Andrea Robbins (1995), Renee Cox (1996), Stanley Greenberg (1997), Chan Chao (1998), Annu Palakunnathu Matthew (1999), Lonnie Graham (2000), Zoë Sheehan Saldaña (2001), Alessandra Sanguinetti (2002), William Earle Williams (2003), Pipo Nguyen-duy (2004), Hank Willis Thomas (2005), Beatrix Reinhardt (2006), Lucas Foglia (2007), Deana Lawson (2008), Yolanda del Amo (2009), Brian Ulrich (2010), Michael Tummings (2011), Cui Fei (2012), and John Freyer (2013).

View Contact Sheet 173: 40 Artists / 40 Years

Other items featuring Cindy Sherman:
Contact Sheet 75/ 76
Contact Sheet 97: Light Work Annual 1998 (25th Anniversary Edition)

Valerio Spada
Contact Sheet 172: Light Work Annual 2013
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Light Work (August 1, 2013)
ISBN: 935445-84-6
$27

This catalogue features work produced by the 2012 Light Work Artists-in-Residence and the Light Work Grant Recipients with accompanying essays. It includes the work of Aspen Mays, Claire Beckett, Heidi Kumao, Irina Rozovsky, John Chervinsky, Justyna Badach, Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira, Michael Bühler-Rose, Nate Larson and Marni Shindelman, Raymond Meeks, Shimon Attie, and Valerio Spada. Light Work Grant recipients include Dennis Krukowski, Tice Lerner, and Sayler/Morris.

View Contact Sheet 172: Light Work Annual 2013

Mark Steinmetz
Perugia, Italy, 1993
Pigmented inkjet print, 7.75 x 11″
Shipped in a 14 x 18″ mat
Edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist
$300

Mark Steinmetz is known for his black-and-white photographs that explore the magic of the everyday. With delicate tones, his images and various books have found their place in the canon of photography. Among his many monographs is a soft spoken book titled Italia: Cronaca di un Amore (Nazraeli, 2010), which includes this memorable portrait of a dalmatian on the streets of Perugia, Italy. His photographs are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, among others. Steinmetz participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program in 1998.

View this print by Mark Steinmetz

Other items featuring Mark Steinmetz:
Contact Sheet 59

Brian Ulrich
Contact Sheet 162: Light Work Annual 2011
Paperback: 80 pages
Publisher: Light Work (August 1, 2011)
ISBN: 0-935445-73-0
$27

This catalogue features work produced by the 2010 Light Work Artists-in-Residence and the Light Work Grant Recipients with accompanying essays. It includes the work of Sama Alshaibi and Dena Al-Adeeb, Ayana V. Jackson, Brian Ulrich, Christian Patterson, Lenard Smith, Susan Worsham, Gerard H. Gaskin, Keliy Anderson-Staley, Simon Rowe, Shen Wei, Zoe Strauss, Richard Barnes. Light Work Grant recipients include Yasser Aggour, Ron Jude, Lida Suchy.

View this Contact Sheet featuring Brian Ulrich

Other items featuring Brian Ulrich:
Contact Sheet 173: 40 Artists 40 Years

Jo Ann Walters
Contact Sheet 177: Light Work Annual 2014
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Light Work (July 1, 2014)
ISBN: 935445-89-7
$27

View Contact Sheet 177: Light Work Annual 2014

William Earle Williams
Contact Sheet 140: William Earle Williams
Paperback: 48 pages
Publisher: Light Work (January 16, 2007)
ISBN: 0-935445-50-1
$12

This catalogue features the stunning photographs of William Earle Williams. Until the release of the motion picture Glory in 1989, it was not well known that more than 180,000 black soldiers served in the Civil War. Williams’s images call attention to the sites made special through these soldiers’ contributions, so that their story becomes a part of our American story. The photographer has been pursuing this series for over ten years. He has photographed significant Civil War sites in the South and North, recording both historically recognizable as well as forgotten locations.

View this Contact Sheet featuring William Earle Williams

Other items featuring William Earle Williams:
Contact Sheet 173: 40 Artists 40 Years
Contact Sheet 127: Light Work Annual 2004

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For more information about these and all of Light Work’s artists, please visit our Artist Index, Artist-in-Residence Program, Exhibtions,Chronology, and Collection.

For inquiries, contact Communications Coordinator Jessica Posner at jessica@lightwork.org or 315.443.1263.

Urban Video Project: Excerpt from Tiffany E. Barber’s “Cyborg Grammar?”

April 2, 2015/in News, Urban Video Project

Light Work is pleased to present the second in a series of special posts from our affiliated program, Urban Video Project (UVP). UVP is a multi-media public art initiative of Light Work and Syracuse University, and an important international venue for the public presentation of video and electronic arts. Operating on the Connective Corridor cultural strip in Syracuse, NY, UVP’s flagship site UVP Everson features year-round, outdoor public projections onto the facade of the I.M. Pei designed Everson Museum of Art. UVP is one of few projects in the United States dedicated to continuous and ongoing video art projections. For more information about the Urban Video Project, please visit UVP’s website.

As the culminating event to its 2014-2015 curatorial program, Celestial Navigation: a year into the afro future, UVP will be presenting a full day of afro-future inspired and related events on April 7, 2015. These events include an artist lecture by Cauleen Smith; a workshop with Rasheeda Phillips; the Speculations performance, conversation, and screening; and the world premiere of Cauleen Smith: Crow Requiem. For more information, please visit urbanvideoproject.com.

Cauleen Smith: Crow Requiem will remain on view at UVP Everson from April 7 through May 30, 2015, screening every Thursday through Saturday from dusk until 11p.m.

Below, Tiffany E. Barber presents an excerpt from her unpublished essay, “Cyborg Grammar? Reading Wangechi Mutu’s Non je ne regrette rien through Kindred.” Barber’s essay will be included in the forthcoming book Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astroblackness, edited by Reynaldo Anderson and Charles Jones and published by Lexington Books.

Barber will be co-moderating the Speculations event with Jerome P. Dent and Anneka Herre at the Everson Museum of Art on April 7, 2015.

—

“A maimed figure – part human, part animal, part machine – is suspended in the middle of a grey and brown, cloud-like background. Severed from its upper half and projected into a cumulous abyss, only the lower limbs of the figure remain, separated like scissors. The bottom leg extends and the top leg bends at the knee, reaching upward like a scorpion’s tail or a morbidly elegant arabesque. Instead of a knee joint, the top leg is equipped with a motorcycle wheel that connects to spinal tubing. Green and grey-scaled tentacles cover its pelvic region. The right half of the picture plane is bisected by the figure’s bottom leg. Instead of a foot, the end of the leg is fitted with an amalgam of animal hoof, stiletto, and blooming flower. The left half of the picture plane is dominated by a coiling serpent whose skin is imbued with violet, red, and other earthen hues.^[i]

The center of the image is the most visually arresting. Occupied by black root-like structures emerging from the figure’s lower excised torso, the grey background is spattered with colliding color fields of ochre, green, and pink spewing from the figure’s top leg from which its foot appears to have been violently amputated. The composition is arranged in such a way that it is hard to tell whether the coiling serpent is responsible for the figure’s ruptured state, or if the plant parts have caused the body to breach internally. The collage, Non je ne regrette rien (2007) by artist Wangechi Mutu, confronts the viewer with a complex scene that is repulsive yet seductively compelling, and the arrangement of human, animal, plant, and mechanical parts suggests a type of mutualism that results in a dismembered body. Known for her grotesque representations of black female bodies that exist between the cyborgian and the Afrofuturistic, Mutu’s Non je ne regrette rien offers a unique approach to black female subjecthood, what I call transgressive disfigurement.^[ii] It pictures ways of being that are not predicated on wholeness but which instead incorporate alternate, at times violent or “undesirable” forms of transformation that serve to produce dismembered black female bodies.”

—

[i] Nicole R. Smith notes, “[M]uch of Mutu’s work[s] [. . .] often include a central female creature. Sometimes such figures are flanked by smaller and even more fantastical creatures—part fairy, puck, and insect. In some instances, they merely surround the main figure, while in others they take on a more sinister appearance, acting out in devilish ways” (Smith, “Wangechi Mutu: Feminist Collage and the Cyborg,” Art and Design Theses Paper 51 (2009), 13). A portion of the left side of the female figure in Non je ne regrette rien is flanked by a serpent. For the purposes of this essay, I focus on the central female figure in Non je ne regrette rien in order to underscore the intervention into representing black female bodies that my reading of Mutu’s collage makes.

[ii] A portion of this chapter was presented at the 35th Anniversary Conference of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University in April 2013 in Montréal, Québec. Special thanks to my colleague Rachel Zellars for the many conversations that helped me clarify this notion of “transgressive disfigurement.”

—

Image: Wangechi Mutu, Non je ne regrette rien, 2007. Ink, paint, mixed media, plant material and plastic pearls on Mylar, 54 x 87 inches. Courtesy of the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery.

Tiffany E. Barber

Tiffany E. Barber is a scholar, curator, and writer of twentieth and twenty-first century visual art and performance with a focus on artists of the black diaspora living and working in the United States. Her essay on artist Wangechi Mutu and Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel Kindred is forthcoming in Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astroblackness (Lexington Books).

Anouk Kruithof Talks Books, Travel, Feminism & More

March 30, 2015/in Interviews, News

Anouk Kruithof is a Dutch artist currently based in New York City. She has been exploring and questioning the picture-plane, image, materiality, physicality and philosophy of the medium of photography for over a decade. Her multi-layered, interdisciplinary projects take the form of photographs, installations, artist books, text, sculpture, ephemera and performance. Kruithof was an Artist-in-Residence at Light Work in May 2013. Her new book, The Bungalow, was recently published by Onomatopee. She recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for her forthcoming book, AUTOMAGIC, which she worked on while in residence at Light Work.

Below, Kruithof and Light Work’s Jessica Posner engage in a conversation about The Bungalow, AUTOMAGIC, travel, feminism, and more.

—

Jessica Posner: Hello, Anouk! You were an Artist-in-Residence at Light Work in May 2013. Can you tell us a bit about what you worked on during that time, and what you have been up to since then?

Anouk Kruithof: During my Light Work residency, I spent the first week on my book Pixel Stress, which was published by RVB Books in September 2013. The other weeks I worked on my upcoming book, AUTOMAGIC. It is a very extensive project containing work from 2003 through 2015, which I started working on in May 2011. Readers can check out my Kickstarter to learn more about AUTOMAGIC.

In 2013, I made the solo show Everything is Wave in gallery Boetzelaer|Nispen in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In the Spring, my small solo exhibition Within Interpretations of a Wall opened at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. I did nine months as an artist-in-residence through ISCP in New York. This summer, I started my publishing platform, Stresspress.biz. I’ve published two more books: Untitled (I’ve taken too many photos / I’ve never taken a photo), self-published, and The Bungalow, published by Onomatopee. Shane Lavalette, the Director of Light Work, basically checked the first dummy of The Bungalow in May of 2013.

In the past year I’ve traveled a lot too: Jamaica, Mexico, LA, and Europe. I’m currently living in New York City, and I just found a new studio on the Lower East Side. I am crazy about it!

From The Bungalow, 2014

JP: It sounds like you’ve had an amazing two years. Congratulations! I’d like to start off a conversation about The Bungalow by asking you about a phrase that you use in the introduction of the book, “screen-reality.” Can you expand on that term?

AK: The world by now is dominated by photos. In this world, people function as processors of an ongoing stream of images. For many of us, it has become more normal to look at the world through a computer or iPhone screen, than seeing it in physical reality. We filter reality by means of a screen, and thus experience life in this way. That reality is limited to a rectangle, even though this screen-reality is ascribed a “full view.” But the real full view, the context, fades when we take in such large quantities of photos through a screen. Photos have become pieces of evidence of entities. By this I mean that a thing that has been recorded only exists because the photo shows us it’s there. For many, a photo is proof that what is depicted exists for real, even without physically or consciously having seen the object in reality. Seeing in the physical sense has been degraded because of this. Seeing is the only sensory process remaining, while the other sensory experiences—smelling, touching, tasting and hearing—have no role to play in screen-reality.

From The Bungalow, 2014

JP: In The Bungalow, it appears as though you are very assertively colliding a history of what appears to be manual collage with a much newer imagery/language of digital image editing softwares like Photoshop. Can you tell us about this?

AK: Instead of the physical environment, the computer screen provides the frame in which you play with objects. Within this screen-frame, you slide the new entities (the photos) into, behind, and/or across each other. We do so consciously in Photoshop, or unconsciously by opening multiple photos or windows simultaneously. By making a screenshot of this compilation, you create a digital still life. A new entity comes into being, with its own origin on the screen (versus originating in physical reality). “Screenshot-photography” is born. In my view, this is a way to record the screen-reality in which we live.

JP: I find myself lingering on the spreads in The Bungalow in which you are abstracting bodies engaged in what appears to be sexual or physical power play. Though you are abstracting specific content through the process of collage, the images of bodies performing through restraint, obfuscation, or other forms of manipulation persist.

AK: The bodies of those women are clearly acting some kind of scene between bondage and wrestling, and were literally cut out by my hand and a scissor. An empty void fills them up, their forms becoming sculptural. I find the forms more interesting. The imagination provides more to wonder about. Spectators are given space to visualize what they want to see or desire. I, for example see a white form vacuuming. But, actually, the vacuum was the body of a woman. To me this is funny and raises questions.

The white shapes let one focus more on the environment, the backdrops, and the furniture; rather than the acts those women are performing in the original photographs. Removing the women’s bodies also means relieving them from the previous situation. Maybe it was a power play before, but I don’t know. I wasn’t there when the pictures were taken. Neither do I know how those women felt when posing for those pictures. So I see it as a symbol of liberation.

There is so much female nudity in the history of photography, and often as a gesture of dedication and appreciation for beauty and female body. But to me it’s usually tiring, banal sexiness. Women are seen as objects to look at, and photos are sketches of surface.

This chapter does raises some questions about the position of women, the mystery, the funny side and the never ending intelligence, strength and power of women. At least that’s what my intentions and thoughts were.

From The Bungalow, 2014

JP: Your response makes me curious to ask if you consider yourself a feminist? Does that play any role in your art practice?

AK: Of course I am a feminist, which woman isn’t a feminist? Maybe the ones who don’t know what feminism means. Luckily, I am surrounded also by male friends who are feminist as well. I don’t necessarily manifest feminism through my art works directly, though, because I like to think about making work and striving towards a more holistic universe of equality. I feel that’s a huge task to think about. It’s what makes me depressed at times, like, “what to do?”

I have so much energy… what’s the richest and most valuable way to transition this energy for a bigger cause? But the thoughts are overwhelming and bring me in a deep dark black hole, because one can only do just a little. The best is to be honest to yourself. Do what you love and believe in this. Hopefully, it resonates when it’s truly sincere. Even if you don’t know what it actually is, you give what you can give. Bring it out there.

JP: Do you see the work you do as political? To me, presenting a critical, visual story divergent from more traditional or popular modes of presentation and representation (which you articulate above) could be interpreted as a political act. Was this ever your intention?

AK: My work is not political. Socially engaged, for sure. I strive to make rather layered work because I appreciate work which leaves space for people to engage with it by raising questions, leaving gaps, and intervening thoughts on different layers. It’s about respecting that people with different ages, cultural backgrounds, different emotions, and experiences will take something out of a work. What matters to them, what makes them wonder? My work isn’t a one way road with no space for u-turns.

From The Bungalow, 2014

JP: I realize I’ve gotten a little off track, and maybe this is as good a time as any to make a u-turn to return back to The Bungalow. There’s something really sweet and strange about this spread with the skeletons. Can you tell us about it?

AK: From what I know about the photos I chose, those skeletons are the ones used in hospitals or classrooms in biology or anatomy lessons. It looked to me as though some people are fooling around with them in a basement, treating them as a real persona. The old ladies are laughing, the man dancing with them could be a doctor or biology teacher. They are just dancing with the skeletons, carrying them around. I think the people in the pictures are drunk. Those photos were probably taken by amateurs, and made me laugh out loud. I could not quite get how this situation would appear.

Isn’t that not the most interesting thing when you look at photos? They should be like question marks. That’s almost the only way I get hot from a single photo, if its embedded with some question mark behind the surface of what we see. Evidence by Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel is maybe the best example of what I’m trying to explain. Some of the images I chose from Brad Feuerhelm’s collection remind of, and relate to, that work by Sultan and Mandel.

JP: It’s almost as if the question mark, or that open ended unknowing, is your punctum which connects all of the images you choose to work with.

AK: If a photo does bounce this question mark towards me I have already passed by. There are too many photos. They are everywhere. One needs to develop a personal filter system to not drown in the image-ocean we’re living in.

JP: Are there any other chapters from The Bungalow that you’d like to tell us more about?

AK: Command Shift 3: New Photography is the chapter where you see some images opened in Photoshop and then re-photographed by making a screenshot. It’s a digital way of making a still life photo, screen-reality is a reality too. It’s like taking of a trip and stepping into some sort of parallel world. And like in a trip, I don’t want to see some images, while others enrich me.

I do not want an overdose of photos, and the abundance of photos must not make me forget the distinction between reality and screen-reality. Like a drug addict, I assume to have my photo-consumption under control.

From The Bungalow, 2014

JP: In looking at The Bungalow alongside your other books, it is easy to notice your incredibly vibrant and adventurous colors choices. Can you talk about how you arrive at specific palettes for each project or book, and what that decision making process is like?

AK: I filter life through color. Its broad pallet is brimming with strong mental qualities. This is most of all the case with indeterminate hues. While I mainly work with photography, I tend to manipulate, filter, order, and work with colour in ways that might seem to make more sense if I were painting or drawing. For example, Happy Birthday to You is printed on dirty mint-green paper because that is the colour I saw on most of the walls and in the isolation cells in the mental institution where I was doing the project. This color is supposed to have a calming effect on patients, although I think it might just be a placebo effect. When the institution was being set up, the powers-that-be decided to paint most of the walls this color. So, in this case, the specific color adds something to the project’s content. In Becoming Blue, I used blue because of its art historical and psychological meaning.

I deliberately remove color as well. The combination of black and white is a statement. Part of A Head with Wings is in black and white. A huge part of Happy Birthday to You is too, even though the images are printed on dirty mint-green paper. I also made a wallpaper diptych Der Ausbruch Einer Flexiblen Wand (hart/weich) in black and white.

I choose colors for specific reasons. Organizing things in color is a strategic way to create order within chaos, mostly because I’m always overwhelmed with material. I take too many photos and I’m an obsessive book collector. I always have too many things on hand. Working with color or non-color calms me somehow. It has a meditative effect on me and adds a specific aesthetic quality to the work. You might notice this more than I do, since for me it feels natural to work this way.

From The Bungalow, 2014

JP: Several times, you have used travel as a metaphor while talking about your work. It seems travel is a really important part of your life and art practice. How does travel feeds your practice as an artist?

AK: I love to be in the air, in the ocean, deep down under, or on the road. Movement is important. It’s what makes my life, and maybe my work, dynamic. My worst nightmare is to be a “real” studio-artist. I could never live/work within four walls, working only with materials and my own mind. That being said, I do need to work in a studio. Working with interventions on the street, traveling, interviewing people, and collaborating are important for my practice as well. Photography, video, and text make a connection with the outside world, which next to my digital persona, makes life interesting to me.

JP: If you could go anywhere in the world for any length of time, all expenses paid, where would you go, and for how long?

AK: What a question! I would love to be and work in New York, actually, this amazing place with people of all nationalities in it is unique. I feel it’s the place where this hunger for a more holistic universe of equality comes closest of all places in the world. The energy and drive this creates is fascinating and makes me not want to go anywhere else. But my visa expires mid-September, so maybe this plus my love (who lives in Europe) will make me move back. But I don’t need to think about this yet! I just moved into my new studio and have three interns coming to work with me until the end of June. I love being in New York. In this eccentric place, everyone is slightly insane.

From The Bungalow, 2014

JP: I always felt at home in the city when I lived there as well. Although, I do find that as an artist eccentric contexts crop up no matter where you land. So, what’s up next for you?

AK: Finally publishing my AUTOMAGIC book! I’m also developing my photo-sculptural practice, which will be shown at Art Bruxelles at the end of April. In September, I have a solo show with my gallery, but I have no idea what I will show.

I’m also working on a project around surveillance, anonymity, the representation of the self in media networked realities, and indexing/anti-indexing. It’s a huge collaborative project where I make simple photos of the back of heads of people posing against a simple one-coloured wall or piece of paper. It’s sounds boring, but it’s going to be thousands and thousands of pictures—heads becoming pixels. Brains and thoughts of people of all nationalities will be captured in there. Maybe it’s going to be statement on the failure of human encyclopedic unity.

JP: Thanks so much Anouk! One final question: What’s your favorite cocktail?

AK: The “Angelita” from the Experimental Cocktail Club, which is super close to my studio!

One of the most remarkable experiences in my life was diving the Cenote Angelita (a sinkhole) in Tulum, Mexico. You dive through a gas cloud hanging between saltwater and freshwater. When you’re lost in this gas cloud, looking up to the sun, it’s as if being in cosmic energy, as if the whole spectrum of color surrounds you, as if you’re breathing the roots of the tree. Once you go deeper through the other side of this gas cloud (~150 ft. deep), you see this bizarre set with a tree and the edges of sinkhole. It’s like caves surrounding you. It’s an outrageous experience. You have to walk with your diving gear through the jungle quite a bit too before you arrive, and you have to love diving and not be afraid of depth and small spaces. After the dive, you’d better smoke a little to emphasize the experience. I did this dive with an independent, hippie instructor who holds his gear in a van on the beach and we had a super high time together! When drinking the Angelita cocktail, I dive back in this memory.

JP: Thanks, Anouk. I, of course, want to encourage our readers to buy all of your books and check out your Kickstarter for AUTOMAGIC. I’d also love to encourage them to check out the wonderful video documentation of your books online. I love watching the way you handle the books.

AK: For me a book is an experience, an intimate meeting as well. I like to walk through a book with my fingers the same as how I explore the world traveling.

—

To learn more or support the publication of Kruithof’s AUTOMAGIC, visit her Kickstarter page.

Anouk Kruithof‘s work has been exhibited extensively throughout New York, Europe, Asia, and Australia. She has published seven artistbooks. She is the recipient of the 2012 ICP Infinity Award from the International Center for Photography and the winner of the 2011 Grand Prix Jury and Photoglobal prize at Hyeres, festival international de mode et de photography. Her work is in the collections of FOAM Amsterdam, Het Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Fotomuseum Winterthur Switzerland and Museum Het Domein Sittard NL, MOMA library, ICP library, Pier 24 library, and the library of Het Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Jessica Posner is an artist, Communications Coordinator at Light Work, and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Transmedia at Syracuse University. You can contact her at jessica@lightwork.org.

Urban Video Project: Interview with Curators of Black Radical Imagination

March 20, 2015/in Interviews, News, Urban Video Project

Light Work is pleased to announce a series of special posts from our affiliated program, Urban Video Project (UVP). UVP is a multi-media public art initiative of Light Work and Syracuse University, and an important international venue for the public presentation of video and electronic arts. Operating on the Connective Corridor cultural strip in Syracuse, NY, UVP’s flagship site UVP Everson features year-round, outdoor public projections onto the facade of the I.M. Pei designed Everson Museum of Art. UVP is one of few projects in the United States dedicated to continuous and ongoing video art projections. For more information about the Urban Video Project, please visit UVP’s website.

As part of UVP’s 2014-2015 curatorial program, Celestial Navigation: a year into the afro future, UVP, parent organization Light Work, and the Community Folk Art Center recently hosted Black Radical Imagination I and II, a two-part screening of experimental short films and video works curated by Erin Christovale and Amir George. Inspired by the emergent discourses of Afrofuturism and Afrosurrealism, Erin and Amir have organized three programs of films by contemporary black filmmakers that represent a radical departure from mainstream cinema.

UVP’s current exhibition at UVP Everson, Jeannette Ehlers: Black Bullets, is one of many works included in the Black Radical Imagination (BRI) programs. Jeannette Ehlers: Black Bullets will remain on view at UVP Everson through March 28, 2015.

Tiffany E. Barber and Jerome P Dent, Jr. are scholars who engage with Afrofuturism and its critique. They conducted a brief interview with BRI curators Erin and Amir over email to learn more about their curatorial approach and future projects. Below is the interview transcript.

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Tiffany E. Barber: How did Black Radical Imagination first come about?

Erin Christovale: Black Radical Imagination first came about when a mutual friend introduced Amir and I because we are both young, black film programmers in our respective cities, Los Angeles and Chicago. Being in this unique position, we started a conversation about our love for black independent cinema and emerging visual artists who use new media to create film and video works. At the time, we were also reading Freedom Dreams: Black Radical Imagination by Robin D.G. Kelley, which chronicles various liberation movements by black folk and suggests that without the concept of imagining a new future these historical movements would not have been possible. We wanted to apply that philosophy to the cinematic realm, in hopes of creating a new center of thought-provoking and experimental cinema outside of the larger entertainment industry that typically casts black characters as harsh stereotypes and takes ownership of their stories. From there, we created a program of seven short films that challenge normative ideas of blackness and that also celebrate the philosophy of Afrofuturism.

Black Radical Imagination logo

BRI II Screening at Community Folk Art Center

Jerome P Dent, Jr.: How do you two define Afrofuturism? It’s such a broad term now; how did it shape your first series, a celebration of the philosophy of Afrofuturism as you say, and open onto the second group of films you two curated – Black Radical Imagination II?

EC: Afrofuturism is a term first coined by Mark Dery and is essentially “recreating the past to imagine new futures.” In Black Radical Imagination, we adopt this term in a cinematic way, selecting shorts that defy a mundane or oppressive future by inserting black bodies in space, time travel, and new dimensions. I think the narratives presented in our first program really align themselves with the experimental nature of the program we wanted to highlight.

Still from Mae’s Journal by Amir George

Still from Black Bullets by Jeannette Ehlers

Still from Black Bulletts by Jeannette Ehlers

JPD: The second iteration of BRI centers on Afrosurrealism and the third iteration is a move away from the thematic structure of the first two. Can you tell us how you two conceive of Afrosurrealism and about your approach to the current BRI program, which isn’t explicitly linked to terms like Afrofuturism and Afrosurrealism?

Amir George: Afrosurrealism is a term coined by D. Scot Miller, a writer based in the Bay area. It revolves around a mystical and spiritual context. Our approach to the current program expands on the reclamation of the black body.

EC: Yes, the term was inspired by Amiri Baraka who describes Henry Dumas’s stories as Afro-Surreal Expressionism. Baraka says, “Dumas’s power lay in his skill at creating an entirely different world organically connected to this one…they are also stories of real life, now or whenever, constructed in weirdness and poetry in which the contemporaneity of essential themes become clear.” In this spirit, the films we screened as part of BRI in 2014 program revel in the transfer of African spiritualities to the Americas and how that relation continues to shape our Diasporic culture.

Still from Moonrising by Sanford Biggers and Terrance Nance

Still from Field Notes by Vashti Harrison

Still from American Hunger by Ephraim Asili

TEB: You’ve said that BRI was inspired by Robin D.G. Kelley’s work, and UVP is hosting a panel discussion on Afrofuturism as a platform for social change in a few weeks. Given recent national protests – #BlackLivesMatter for instance – do you two consider BRI a way of life that has political implications now?

AG: I think BRI is more of a school of thought that has gathered audiences interested in discussing the themes being presented within the films. Our platform has given other voices the chance to be heard and allowed for open political conversations about the current state of things.

EC: In LA earlier this year, we were able to use our platform at the LA Book Fair to facilitate a conversation between Black Lives Matter and Printed Matter (the non-profit that hosts the book fair). With the films in the program as a backdrop, I think we continue a black radical tradition as artists and creatives who support larger direct action of community organizing.

TEB: What’s next for you two – individually and collectively?

AG: We have a new program that we’ll be screening throughout the year, and I’m working on a new short film.

Amir George and Erin Christovale at Community Folk Art Center for BRI II screening and panel

Black Radical Imagination Curators Amir George (left) and Erin Christovale (right) with featured artist Jeannette Ehlers (center) with UVP Everson projection of Ehlers’ Black Bullets.

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Erin Cristovale is a curator based in Los Angeles focusing on film/video within the African Diaspora. She graduated with a B.A. from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and currently has an exhibition at the MoCADA Museum called a/wake in the water:Meditations on Disaster. She also works with a collective of creatives called Native Thinghood promoting emerging artists of color.

Amir George is a motion picture artist and film curator from Chicago. His video work and curated programs have been screened in festivals and galleries across the US, Canada, and Europe. In addition to founding The Cinema Culture, a grassroots film programming organization, Amir George was founding programmer of Black Cinema House, a residential cinema space on Chicago’s south side. He currently teaches and produces media with youth throughout Chicagoland.

Jerome P Dent, Jr. is a graduate student at the University of Rochester whose work sits at the intersection of critical race theory, philosophy, and speculative fiction and film with a special focus on black imaginative labors.

Event photography by Matthew Pevear.

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Barber and Dent will continue this series of afrofurist posts for Urban Video Project on the Light Work blog in coming weeks. Please stay tuned! Barber and Dent will also participate on the Speculations event panel on April 7 in celebration of the world premiere Cauleen Smith: Crow Requiem at UVP Everson. Join the event on Facebook.

Call for Entries: 2015 Light Work Grants in Photography

January 6, 2015/in News

2015 Light Work Grants in Photography
CALL FOR ENTRIES—DEADLINE: APRIL 1, 2015
apply online: lightwork.slideroom.com

Light Work is pleased to announce the 2015 Light Work Grants in Photography competition. Light Work began offering grants to CNY artists in 1975 to encourage the production of new photographic work in the region. Three $2,000 grants will be awarded to photographers who reside within an approximate 50-mile radius of Syracuse. Recipients are invited to display their work in a special exhibition at Light Work, and will have their work reproduced in Light Work’s award-winning publication, Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual.

In its 40-year history, the grant program has supported more than 118 artists, some multiple times. With the help of the regional grant, many artists have been able to continue long-term projects, purchase equipment, frame photographs for exhibitions, promote their work, collaborate with others or otherwise continue their artistic goals.

All applicants must reside in of one of the following Central New York counties: Broome, Cayuga, Chemung, Chenango, Cortland, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Madison, Oneida, Onondaga, Oswego, Schuyler, Seneca, St. Lawrence, Tioga or Tompkins.

Three judges from outside the grant region will review the applications. Their decisions are based solely on the strength of the candidate’s portfolio and completed application. Individuals who received this award prior to 2010 are eligible to re-apply. Full-time students are not eligible.

Applicants should apply online at lightwork.slideroom.com.

Light Work is a nonprofit, artist-run photography organization and imaging center located in Syracuse, NY. The organization is dedicated to helping artists working in photography and related media, and supports artists from across the world through exhibitions, publications and artist-in-residence program.

Read more and browse past Light Work Grant recipients online at www.lightwork.org/grants.

To obtain further information or for any questions, contact Light Work at 315-443-1300 or grants@lightwork.org.

Light Work Receives 2015 NEA Art Works Grant

December 3, 2014/in News

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Jane Chu announced today that Light Work is one of 919 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant. The grant will support Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program and the production of Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual.

Every year Light Work invites between twelve and fifteen artists to come to Syracuse to devote one month to creative projects. Over 360 artists have participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program, and many of them have gone on to achieve international acclaim. The residency includes a $5,000 stipend, a furnished artist apartment, 24-hour access to our state-of-the-art facilities, and generous staff support. Work by each Artist-in-Residence is published in a special edition of Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual along with an essay commissioned by Light Work.

NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, “I’m pleased to be able to share the news of our support through Art Works including the award to Light Work. The arts foster value, connection, creativity and innovation for the American people and these recommended grants demonstrate those attributes and affirm that the arts are part of our everyday lives.”

Light Work’s director Shane Lavalette commented, “We are absolutely thrilled to receive the third highest grant in the visual arts category, a testament to the importance of Light Work’s mission in supporting artists working in photography. We’re honored, and look forward to a great year ahead.”

Art Works grants support the creation of art, public engagement with art, lifelong learning in the arts, and enhancement of the livability of communities through the arts. The NEA received 1,474 eligible applications under the Art Works category, requesting more than $75 million in funding. Of those applications, 919 are recommended for grants for a total of $26.6 million. For a complete listing of projects recommended for Art Works grant support, please visit the NEA website at arts.gov. Follow the conversation about this and other NEA-funded projects on Twitter at #NEAFall2014.

To learn more about the 2015 Artists-in-Residence, read our announcement on the Light Work Blog.

To become a supporter of Light Work yourself, consider making a contribution by beginning or renewing your subscription. We encourage you to help us achieve our goal of matching the NEA’s generous support. Contribute today and get something back in return.

Great Art. Great Cause. Browse limited-edition prints, signed books, and Contact Sheet at www.lightwork.org/shop

All subscriptions will assure that you receive the NEA-supported issue of Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual 2015 next summer. Preview spreads from Contact Sheet 177: Light Work Annual 2014 online here.

Light Work’s Online Benefit Auction: Nov. 25 – Dec. 10 on Paddle8

November 25, 2014/in News, Shop

Light Work is pleased to partner with Paddle8 to launch an online benefit auction of limited-edition prints and signed books. The auction runs from Nov. 25 through Dec. 10, 2014. All proceeds benefit Light Work, and support our mission of supporting emerging and under-represented artists working in photography.

For this unique online auction, we have invited guest curator Andy Adams (Editor, FlakPhoto) to hand select prints from Light Work’s Fine Print Program. Each of the prints at auction are framed and ready to hang. All lots include an annual subscription to Contact Sheet. Bidding begins between $200 and $1,500.

This auction is a great opportunity to contribute to Light Work’s mission and receive a collectible work of art, that will last generations, in return. Your support is the gift that keeps on giving. Additionally, great art for a great cause makes for very memorable holiday presents for loved ones (or yourself).

The auction includes works by Carrie Mae Weems, Dawoud Bey, Christian Patterson, Kelli Connell, Doug DuBois, Lucas Foglia, Ann Hamilton, Leslie Hewitt, Mark Klett, Shane Lavalette, Deana Lawson, Raymond Meeks, Duane Michals, Andrea Modica, Mark Steinmetz, William Wegman, James Welling, and more!

We thank you, as always, for your continued support of the hundreds of artists that have called Light Work home over the past forty-one years. With your support, we will continue to do this valuable work for many more years to come. Thank you.

Please visit our auction to view all lots, and start your bidding!

Andy Adams is an independent producer + publisher whose work blends digital communication, online audience engagement, and web-based creative collaboration to explore current ideas in photography and visual media. He is the editor of FlakPhoto, a website that promotes the discovery of photographic image-makers from around the world. In his spare time, he hosts FlakPhoto Network, an online community focused on conversations about photo/arts culture.

Andy Adams on Photography, Supporting Working Artists, and Light Work’s Benefit Auction

November 25, 2014/in Interviews, News

Light Work invited Andy Adams, Editor of FlakPhoto, to curate our first ever online Benefit Auction through Paddle8. On occasion of the auction’s launch, we spoke with him about photography, supporting working artists, and his selection process. The auction runs from Nov. 25 – Dec. 10 and features a variety of limited-edition prints and signed photobooks. Read the conversation with Andy with below, then check out the auction.

Light Work: You clearly understand the importance of supporting artists and their work. Can you talk about some of your motivations for FlakPhoto and the work you do to give exposure to artists working today?

Andy Adams: It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been producing FlakPhoto for nearly a decade. The project has evolved steadily over the course of the past ten years but my goals have stayed the same — to bring attention to photographic image-makers whose work I admire and to provide a place for people who care about photography to come together to celebrate its various forms. This is a thrilling moment for photo/arts culture. I don’t think there’s been a better time to be into pictures.

We’re happy you’re such a fan of non-profit photography centers. Can you talk about some of the reasons you support organizations like Light Work?

The work you do for photographers is inspiring and incredibly important. It’s not easy to be a working artist. Places like Light Work are sanctuaries for creativity. Making time to do the work — to find a project’s focus — is more than half the battle. For artists, the opportunity to explore and realize ideas in the company of creative colleagues is a gift. Residency programs like Light Work’s are essential for visual artists.

Raymond Meeks, Lara, Nova Scotia, 2013

What are some of your favorite prints in Light Work’s Fine Print Program? Which would you love to have up on your wall?

There are so many — I’ve selected some of my favorites for the Paddle8 auction. I love this Raymond Meeks picture, is it his daughter? Who’s she running to (or is it someone she’s running from)? The Susan Worsham and Elijah Gowin prints would make a surprisingly perfect diptych: those hands are wonderful! These women will make sure everything turns out all right, I’m sure of it. I’ve been looking at the Christian Patterson pictures for days — I’m a sucker for bold expressions of color. Light Work has one hell of a print collection.

Christian Patterson, Prarie Grass Leak, 2009

You’ve made an exciting selection of signed books for the auction. How did you go about selecting them?

Easy. They’re books I’d like to own! Nathan Lyons’ Return Your Mind to Its Upright Position is on my holiday wish list and you can’t go wrong with John Gossage. I can vouch for Keliy Anderson-Staley’s On A Wet Bough, it is terrific. I can’t really help myself—the others will end up in my home library soon enough. It’s only a matter of time.

Photobook Lot, curated by Andy Adams

Andy Adams is an independent producer + publisher whose work blends digital communication, online audience engagement, and web-based creative collaboration to explore current ideas in photography and visual media. He is the editor of FlakPhoto, a website that promotes the discovery of photographic image-makers from around the world. In his spare time he hosts the FlakPhoto Network, an online community focused on conversations about photo/arts culture. Visit Light Work’s Benefit Auction at www.paddle8.com/auctions/lightwork

LaToya Ruby Frazier Uses Her Camera to Fight For Her Community

November 7, 2014/in Etc., News

LaToya Ruby Frazier Uses Her Camera to Fight For Her Community
By Lauren Cavalli
Images by Joe Librandi-Cowan

Photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier’s first book, The Notion of Family, documents three generations of women in her family: Grandma Ruby, her Mom, and herself. Yet, it is no ordinary family album. After working for ten years on the project, the book was published in September by Aperture, a non-profit foundation that supports photographers.

On Oct. 30, Frazier read several passages from her book during a lecture she gave at the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at Syracuse University. The SU alum is primarily a photographer, but also works in performance art and videography.

In The Notion of Family, she captures the effects of the industrial landscape of Braddock Pennsylvania on its community and conveys this complex dynamic through an intimate portrait of her family. She focused on the social, economic, physical, and emotional toll of growing up with Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill, the Edgar Thomas Works, as a neighbor.

“The shadow of the steel mill hovered above us,” Frazier said. The mill, which has operated since 1875, omits toxins that slowly poison the community. “The haze that forms the sky is millions of tiny particles. They pass through my lungs into my bloodstream. Like carbon monoxide, they are odorless and have the potential to kill.”

In Oct. 2009, the community was informed that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) would close Braddock Hospital, said Frazier. She is unforgiving of the hospital’s abandoning of its people and showcases photos of her family receiving care for their illnesses, people protesting its closing, and now, how the hospital decays from lack of use after it closed its doors and stands as a memorial to economic decline.

She stressed the importance of keeping a critical eye on television, the news, radio, and social media and urged the audience to be aware of how they affect one’s notion of what constitutes us as people – race, class, gender and religion.

Frazier recalled when she first discovered that Andrew Carnegie library in Braddock omits all African Americans from the historic suburb’s history.

“Peoples’ histories and narratives are all constructed. It is important I insert myself into my history,” Frazier said.

Frazier stands up to institutional racism and environmental degradation with her camera. Her photos of her family are a testament to the community’s ability to endure.

“I want to shed light on invisible realities,” Frazier said.

In her hometown new housing projects are being built, more people will be able to live there, but with the closing of the hospital they have nowhere to go for healthcare in a polluted city. She told the audience of the progress that Braddock is making today; artists are moving in; retail stores are opening; cultural capitol is coming in.

“They don’t think I have a right to tell this story – I am making Braddock look bad. They say: we moved beyond this,” Frazier said.

She acknowledges that revitalization efforts are happening in Braddock, but remains critical. “A restaurant was put in the Braddock mayor’s apartment building. What we needed is a grocery store, not a restaurant we can’t afford,” Frazier said.

Frazier intends to continue telling the people of Braddock’s story by “photographing it, seeing it, speaking to it, and trying to educate.”

At the conclusion of the lecture, Frazier expressed her hopes of using the money from her book sales and her prints to one day start a foundation to advocate for, help, and support the families living in Braddock amongst the city’s blatant ironies today.

“This is more than just an art book, a photo book, its my photo history – an American life – my relationship with my family and my community,” Frazier said. “A descendant of Scottish, African, Braddonian, blue-collar, steel workers, I embrace my heritage.”

Light Work Receives Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation

Light Work Lab Renovation

“What is She Doing There?”:
Susan Lipper on Kristine Potter

Light Work’s Guggenheim Fellows

Urban Video Project: Excerpt from Tiffany E. Barber’s “Cyborg Grammar?”

Anouk Kruithof Talks Books, Travel, Feminism & More

Urban Video Project: Interview with Curators of Black Radical Imagination

Call for Entries: 2015 Light Work Grants in Photography

Light Work Receives 2015 NEA Art Works Grant

Light Work’s Online Benefit Auction: Nov. 25 – Dec. 10 on Paddle8

Andy Adams on Photography, Supporting Working Artists, and Light Work’s Benefit Auction

LaToya Ruby Frazier Uses Her Camera to Fight For Her Community

Light Work was founded as an artist-run non-profit organization in 1973.

Our mission is to provide direct support to artists working in photography and related media, through residencies, publications, and a community-access lab facility.

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