Jason Lazarus: Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse)
April 4 – May 31, 2013
Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery
Gallery Talk: Thursday, April 4, 5pm
Reception: Thursday, April 4, 5-7pm
In 2010 Chicago-based artist Jason Lazarus initiated a living archive of photos deemed “too hard to keep.”
Too Hard to Keep is a place for photographs, photo albums, photo-objects, and even digital files to exist when they are too difficult to hold on to, yet too meaningful to destroy. Participants have dictated whether the photographs submitted to the archive may be shown freely with other pieces of the archive, or if they are only to be displayed face down, adding to the charged significance of individual objects.
With the exhibition Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) Lazarus shares a slice of the larger archive and invites anonymous local submissions in a carefully considered installation at Light Work.
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Shane Lavalette: The idea of being the one responsible for all things “too hard to keep” seems daunting! What compelled you to start this archive?
Jason Lazarus: First, it needed to happen; I am the type of person who would participate in this project! Second, over the past few years I have been increasingly been interested in the vernacular—collecting, editing, curating images for additional meaning as I encounter them. For me it’s as urgent and compelling as making my own original image with a camera, and my photographic practice simultaneously embraces both these days.
This project, once conceived, grew organically as I reached out to my immediate network, and the earnestness of the submissions invigorates the labor and care needed to administer them.
SL: This ‘earnestness’ is palpable in viewing the archive. One can feel it. I’m always amazed at how over the course of an image’s life, our feelings toward it can shift from joy, to anger, indifference, or deep sadness. Of course it’s different for every circumstance, but how would you characterize this overwhelming need to part with an object, and more specifically, a photograph?
JL: One note about the presentation strategy: I want the viewer to feel my relationship to the images as well—that this is not a distanced, museumological, and sterile archive but an artist-run project that has a feeling and imperfect hand guiding the materials. Regarding parting with things, we’re always an amalgam of our past, the present, and our idea of our future—objects come and go as we need them. Letting go of photographs is more about the future than the past…
Jason Lazarus: Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) at Light Work
SL: Do you find yourself conflicted when installing such personal items in the context of an art exhibition?
JL: No, I’m more conflicted with how to create strategies to relay the tension of each entry. Sometimes installation strategies can undermine the whole project, and other times they underscore the epic qualities innate to the archive
SL: I love the fact that you’ve allowed certain images or objects to be exhibited but concealed at the request of the former owner—in the case of photographic prints, by just showing the backs of them. How do you see these in conversation with the other images?
JL: The images submitted as private and therefore exhibited face down are vital—they say as much about the owners (and the rest of us) as the most potent images we get to see. Quietly, and still visually, they have much to say. They are activated by the public images, and vice versa. The audience is asked to consider them as placeholders, as open narrative, as truly charged and thus, in a way, dangerous.
SL: Charged? Dangerous? Interesting use of words… Can you elaborate?
JL: They are symbolic of our own worst fears… they can be projected upon without limit.
Jason Lazarus: Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) at Light Work
SL: How would you describe the themes that arise in the archive? Do you find patterns, oddities, clichés?
JL: Yes, they couch everything from singularity to cliché as any large group of vernacular images might. Their unifying thread in this archive, the fact that they are “too hard to keep,” folds the familiar patterns and tropes of the private vernacular into a refreshed tension—they are taut…
SL: What have you found to be the most moving submissions? Is there one in particular that continues to strike you?
JL: My relationship with the archive and all of its contents is always in flux. Landscapes in the archive can be phenomenally powerful. To have an outdoor expanse implicated is for me fascinating and I can relate to this sometimes more easily than an image of a person who I don’t know. The private images are always moving to me when installed. They are obstinate, they refuse to bore the viewer with content, they are completely elemental in this project—all charge, no window.
SL: I’m glad you touched on this. There are certain images which may be hard for some viewers to imagine why they are “too hard to keep”—a landscape, a building, an abstraction. I find these to be the most powerful…
JL: Yes, there is a sort of slow violence about the most static images.
SL: You recently opened the archive up to digital submissions, and even offered your personal cell phone number for anyone to anonymously text images to you. In what way are these submissions different than the physical ones?
JL: I’m not sure yet, as I’ve only been receiving digital submissions for a relatively short period of time. Certainly I miss the objecthood of these entries, and the stories the photos-as-objects may have can’t be immediately seen (yellowing, wear and tear, handwriting, etc). On the other hand, receiving them unexpectedly on my phone, in the middle of a normal day, out of thin air, is poetically very rewarding. Someone’s personal narrative literally interrupts mine. It’s an unexpected shock, a signal, a moment of camaraderie…
Jason Lazarus: Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) at Light Work
SL: This makes me wonder… How do you view our relationship to, say, ‘photo albums’ on Facebook to the dusty ones in the closet? Can we have the same sentimentality or pain result from a digital file as a photographic print?
JL: It’s not for me to say. I feel lucky to be living at a time when one image paradigm is leading to another, and I can actively question both from a sense of heightened awareness and perspective.
Now that personal photos are digitized, it’s interesting to watch them, like water, effortlessly find their way quickly into new crevices and reservoirs far from their original source.
SL: What is your process of engaging with a local community, for example Syracuse?
JL: When possible, I will make myself available to a community for one day of personal pickups. I’ll dedicate 8-10 hours of being on call so community members can submit to the project in person without much effort on their part. Going to where the photos live is, for me, a unique and rare opportunity to understand their history and context better, even if the eventual audience is not privy to this information. It helps me become a better curator and artist within the archive’s parameters.
SL: Do you see an end in sight, or is the Too Hard to Keep archive a life-long commitment?
JL: T.H.T.K. is a life-long project, and I have found a colleague, Aron Gent of Chicago, to take it over in case something unexpected should happen to me. This way I can ensure some continuity to the archive and its format, as well as reciprocate the faith that the public has put into the project.
SL: With Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) the site-specific installation of selected images and objects from the archive will also live on in publication form, as an issue of Contact Sheet. How will these images change when reproduced in the pages of the book? Who do you hope discovers this catalogue?
JL: I’m not sure actually, as the project hasn’t been published yet. I have instincts about what may happen, but it’s a puzzle—I’m interested in finding ways to keep the tension alive and complex when the actual object is no longer at arms reach.
Unlike a lot of other contemporary image based work where you significantly benefit from having studied photographic history and theory, the audience for this project starts with everyone…
Jason Lazarus: Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) at Light Work
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Jason Lazarus is a Chicago-based artist, curator, writer, and educator who received his MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2003. Lazarus has actively exhibited around the country and abroad while teaching photography at Columbia College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Selected exhibition highlights include Black Is, Black Aint at the Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL; Image Search at PPOW Gallery, New York, NY; On the Scene at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; and solo exhibitions at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Kaune, Sudendorf, Cologne, Germany; and D3 Projects, Los Angeles, CA. Notable honors include the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship, 2010; an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship award, 2009; the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award, Emerging Artist, 2008; and the Emerging Artist Artadia Grant, 2006. His work can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and the Bank of America LaSalle Photography collection, among many others. Lazarus is represented by Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL.
www.jasonlazarus.com
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Interested in submitting to the T.H.T.K. archive?
Drop off your print anonymously in the drop box located at Light Work during the length of the exhibition. If you are not local, you can submit to the artist directly by following the instructions at toohardtokeep.blogspot.com
Artists On The Light Work Experience: Carrie Mae Weems
/in NewsIn honor of our 40th Anniversary, Light Work asked previous Artists-in-Residence for their thoughts on their Light Work experience. We started with a small group, a few of the artists selected for our current exhibition 40 Artists / 40 Years: Selections from the Light Work Collection. Each week, these statements will bring you a new perspective on Syracuse, Light Work, and the active space we create for our visiting artists.
The first piece of this multi-part blog installment features photographic artist and Syracuse resident Carrie Mae Weems.
How did your residency experience at Light Work influence your work? What progress did you make while here?
How did your residency experience at Light Work influence your career? What came next?
Anything else you want to share about your experience?
Carrie Mae Weems was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1953. Weems earned a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (1981), and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego (1984), continuing her studies in the Graduate Program in Folklore at the University of California, Berkeley (1984–87). Weems’s vibrant explorations of photography, video, and verse breathe new life into traditional narrative forms: social documentary, tableaux, self-portrait, and oral history. Eliciting epic contexts from individually framed moments, Weems debunks racist and sexist labels, examines the relationship between power and aesthetics, and uses personal biography to articulate broader truths. Whether adapting or appropriating archival images, restaging famous news photographs, or creating altogether new scenes, she traces an indirect history of the depiction of African Americans of more than a century. Awards include the Anonymous Was a Woman Award (2007); Skowhegan Medal for Photography (2007); Rome Prize Fellowship (2006); and the Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grant in Photography (2002); among others. Weems’ work is included in many prestigious public collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo in Sevilla, Spain, among many others.
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Find a print by Carrie Mae Weems for sale in the Light Work Shop.
Stay tuned for next week’s feature, with Suzanne Opton
Light Work Celebrates Artists with Billboards Around Syracuse
/in NewsLight Work is excited to unveil a series of billboards around the city of Syracuse!
In conjunction with our current exhibition 40 Artists / 40 Years: Selections from the Light Work Collection, we have placed seven billboard locations across the city. Each billboard celebrates the work of an artist that had an integral experience as an Artist-In-Residence with Light Work. Additionally, many of the works highlighted are currently being exhibited as part of the current exhibition in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at Light Work.
The forty pictures in this exhibition represent each year that Light Work has been supporting artists from 1973-2013. They stand in for the hundreds of other artists who have participated in our Artist-in-Residence, exhibition, publishing, and grant programs and stand out as the reason we do what we do.
Light Work always has been, and continues to be, an alternative arts organization run by artists for the benefit and support of other artists. Working in collaboration with Community Darkrooms at Syracuse University, Light Work has concentrated on supporting emerging and under-recognized artists, giving them the opportunity to create new work, and then making that work part of the ongoing dialogue about contemporary art.
Alessandra Sanguinetti
John Gossage
Carrie Mae Weems
Lucas Foglia
If you haven’t seen the billboards already, here is where you can find them:
Click here to view a handy Google Map with the locations and featured artists.
If you visit or encounter any of the installations, please snap a photo and share it with us via Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook with the hashtag #lightworkbillboard for a chance to win a subscription to our publication Contact Sheet.
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Light Work extends a special thanks to CNY Arts for their partnership and support on this project.
Join us for a reception for 40 Artists / 40 Years on Thursday, September 26th from 5-7pm at Light Work. More information at www.lightwork.org
Fall 2013 Workshops
/in Lab, NewsSign up for Fall 2013 workshops at Light Work / Community Darkrooms.
Each semester Light Work / Community Darkrooms offers a series of workshops and classes to help you build your photographic skill set.
Firm Foundations: 5 Week Workshops
Studio Lighting
Tuesdays, September 17-October 15, 6-9 pm.
This fast-paced, hands-on course will show you how to work in the studio using the equipment available at Community Darkrooms. Aside from the technical aspects of studio work, you will be encouraged to express your own creativity and use lighting to further enhance your work. You only need to bring your camera; all necessary equipment will be provided.
Introduction to Lightroom 5
Tuesdays, September 17-October 15, 6-9 pm.
This course will provide an introduction to the basic layout, tools, and modules of the program, giving you a foundation to build on, as well as the knowledge to export and publish your work.
Alternative Processes
Thursdays, October 3-31, 6-9 pm.
Learn how to make cyanotype prints, salt prints, and photograms in this hands-on workshop that explores simple yet effective alternative processes. This includes historic and contemporary work, as well as the traditional black and white development process.
Introduction to InDesign
Thursdays, October 3-31, 6-9 pm.
New to InDesign? This class will teach you the basics of creating engaging print designs and page layouts that output professionally, letting you design with confidence. Learn to navigate the program, understand the tools, create, edit, and save files.
Introduction to Photoshop
Tuesdays, October 29-November 26, 6-9pm.
If you are new to Photoshop, or just need a refresher course on the basics, this is the foundation for you. Whether you want to size files, import, export, or read a histogram, this course covers the basics.
Understanding Your Digital Camera
Thursdays, November 14-December 12, 6-9 pm.
This course will help you understand how digital cameras work, and what features and settings will enhance your images. You will need to bring your digital SLR (or advanced point-and-shoot) as well as your camera instruction manual.
Single Session Classes
Using Flash Effectively
Sunday, September 22, 1-4pm.
Your flash can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on how you use it. Learn flash techniques that will help you flesh out, rather than flatten, your subjects. Bring your camera and plenty of extra batteries.
Camera Basics
Sunday, October 6, 1-4 pm.
This will be a simple overview of how to use your digital camera. There will be a few short lectures before heading outside to the beautiful Syracuse University campus where you will be free to photograph an array of subject matter, practice learned techniques, and ask questions as you go.
Making the Most of Your Scanner
Sunday, November 10, 1-4 pm.
Learn how to use your camera to make the best possible images. You will review file types and sizes, learn the difference between the Imacon and flatbed scanner, discover the 3F format, and make adjustments to create a final scan. Bring a hard drive and your film.
To guarantee your place in the class, payment must be received at least three days prior to the start of the workshop.
Find more detailed information at www.communitydarkrooms.com
Catching Up with Hannah Frieser
/in InterviewsDuring her eight years with Light Work, many have been impacted by Hannah Frieser‘s generosity and commitment to the organization’s mission of supporting artists. On behalf of the staff, friends, and a host of artists, we want to say a warm thank you to Hannah for the energy she brought to Light Work, and wish her the best in her new pursuits. In the following interview, we catch up with Hannah from the road to hear about some of her fond memories, what she is currently working on, and what’s next.
Hannah Frieser, Berlin, 2013 (photograph by Adam Magyar)
In your eight years with Light Work you worked with over 100 artists in the residency program alone. I’m sure there are many great memories looking back, but do you have a favorite?
I have countless fond memories of working with artists in the residency program. Few experiences are as inspiring as seeing artists get the support they deserve and letting them get to work. During my time at Light Work, the residency program brought a constant stream of fabulous artists to Syracuse, each with different projects and different needs. Every arrival would bring a new set of shared conversations, art discussions, soul searching, and good old fashion roll-up-your-sleeves art making.
I especially remember KayLynn Deveney’s last minute plea for help with her book project. Our residency program was already full, but the staff voted unanimously to help her out. She worked tirelessly, shifted from c-printing to digital prepress at record speed and in the end produced one of the most poetic books celebrating the quiet beauty of aging. Then there was Lucas Foglia, whom I met at an SPE conference where he showed me one astonishingly excellent series of work after another. At the time he was beginning the Rewilding series. During his residency Lucas created a tight edit for his photo series, which was then beautifully placed into context by Ariel Shanberg’s essay in The Light Work Annual 2008. Lucas has an unerring instinct to capture moments of human interaction in the perfect framework of color and composition. He is going to go far.
Christian Patterson’s Redheaded Peckerwood maquette, 2010
Christian Patterson is another artist who comes to mind as someone we got to make a difference for at just the right time. Christian arrived at Light Work with an idea for a book. This turned into a hand-made edition created entirely in Syracuse, followed directly by a trade edition that is now in its third run. What a success story. Or the time Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira experienced a major set-back with her project and reinvented her residency on the spot to create brand new work. The resulting images are charismatic and refreshing – just as the artist – and they are sure to strike a cord when they appear in the next Light Work Annual with Elizabeth Ferrer’s thoughtful essay. And then there was the time when Elwira Jaglowska arrived at Light Work with a long laundry list of props she needed for her photo shoot. The staff immediately jumped into action and found every last item on her list, including rusty chains, an old guitar, dead fish, a tree (from my garden), a skull (from a local biologist, not my garden!), and more.
The list goes on and on, but one of my fondest recent highlights of the program was introducing John Chervinsky to Nathan Lyons to request some guidance for the sequencing of John’s first book project. Nathan gave John a quick overview into the art of editing a book sequence and then he took John through the process step by step. In closing Nathan turned things around and showed John his current project, explaining the sequencing as they looked at the book mock-up. So many special moments, and I could name so many more.
Barry Anderson, UVP projection, 2009
Is there an exhibition or project you feel will always best represent your vision or curatorial voice in the medium?
Well, there are my two expanded exhibition projects that included lectures, billboards, and more. While working with Suzanne Opton during her residency, it became clear just how timely and relevant her photographs of soldiers from Fort Drum were. Considering the global impact of war, my thoughts were to develop an exhibition that would reach beyond the gallery walls. Suzanne and I came up with the idea for billboards as a means to get the images out into the world. I was able to raise the funds for the billboards and to invite Vicki Goldberg to give a lecture and write the essay for the catalogue. A few years later, I saw another opportunity for an expanded exhibition project with Barry Anderson. I wanted to show Barry’s video art as installations, rather than video panels on the wall. So I talked to many art organizations and different departments at Syracuse University about a citywide collaboration. In the end, the project included over a dozen exhibition venues, outdoor video projections, fifteen billboards and more. Instead of a postcard we printed a map to announce the exhibition and all its venues. The project is also an excellent example of the level of collaborations possible in Syracuse.
Pipo Nguyen-duy, installation view, Community Darkrooms Gallery wall, 2006
Some ideas can also expand beyond the single exhibition. In 2006 I decided to create an exhibition with Pipo Nguyen-duy’s East of Eden series, most of which were photographed in the United States after 9/11. However I also really liked some of the newer images photographed for the series in Vietnam. The former stayed in the psychological realm of imminent danger, while the latter addressed recovery from unthinkable violence that has already occurred. In the end I decided to stick to my original idea, but to mention the new direction of his series in my introductory essay. A few years later I was able to invite Pipo back to Light Work as part of the 2010 Syracuse Symposium for the Syracuse University Humanities Center. We showed five of the Vietnam photographs in a smaller exhibition and flew Pipo in to give a lecture about the series in the context of the Symposium’s theme of “Conflict: Peace and War.” He has since received a Guggenheim Fellowship to continue the Vietnam images.
Hannah Frieser, detail from Tortilla Wall, 2008
In the coming months or years do you plan to focus more on your own work as an artist?
I plan on spending more time on making art, but not exclusively. Currently I am doing general research for my next art projects, which I hope to work on intensively in the fall. My last big projects focused on cross-cultural heritage and Mexican-American identity. I have a number of artist books planned to continue the series, but I am also preparing for a related project on Little Mexico, a neighborhood of immigrant families that existed in Dallas through the 1980s. These ideas are developing on paper right now. Soon I’ll have time to put those ideas into action. It’s exciting to think about spending more time in art making again, but it will always be a balance with my curatorial and administrative work. I live in both worlds and one feeds the enthusiasm for the other.
Adam Magyar, Frazier King, and Hannah Frieser at Houston Center for Photography, 2013
What projects are you working on now? What’s next?
I am working on multiple projects that I have been planning for some time, while also traveling to meet with curators and artists. I just wrapped up a 2,500 mile road trip by car through the US which included a stop in Houston for the opening of the Adam Magyar exhibition (Contact Sheet 170). Now I am in Europe doing the same by train. I already have plans to travel through Germany, Switzerland and France. And I am laying out plans for the next big leg of my adventures, to travel to Latin America later this year. Basically I am filling my head with art and meaningful exchanges, which will lead to a number of essays, lectures, and the launch of my curatorial research project which will showcase international art centers, their curators and their photographers. Along the way I am reviewing portfolios and jurying exhibitions.
It’s all been quite a whirlwind of new impressions. But I am about to lay low in Zürich for a while to work on two essays that will be published in late summer, sit on a jury for an exhibition on emerging European photographers, and remotely jury another competition in Latin America. A good friend helped me set up a blog before I left Syracuse, but I have yet to find time to add content. So maybe I will be able to do some writing for this as well. Then it is on to the Les Rencontres d’Arles festival in France and other projects after that. I expected things would slow down for me after I left Light Work, but the opposite has been true. I have kept extremely busy, and I continue to add new ideas to my red moleskine notebook. My list keeps growing.
Light Work Tote Bags
/in Etc.Light Work tote bag, screenprinted logo on natural canvas.
Light Work tote bags are now available in the Shop.
Get yourself one for only $12! Order here.
2013 Light Work Grants in Photography
/in Exhibitions, NewsLight Work is pleased to announce that the recipients for the 39th annual Light Work Grants in Photography are Laura Heyman, Jared Landberg, and Janice Levy. The Light Work Grants in Photography program is a part of Light Work’s ongoing effort to provide support and encouragement to artists working in photography. Established in 1975, it is one of the longest-running photography fellowship programs in the country. Each recipient receives a $2,000 award, has their work exhibited at Light Work, and published in Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual. The judges for this year were Christopher Gianunzio (Assistant Director, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center), Akemi Hiatt (independent curator), and Chuck Mobley (Director, SF Camerawork).
Laura Heyman — Stevens Yvens, Grand Rue, March 2011
Laura Heyman submitted a group of photographs from her on-going series, Pa Bouje Ankò: Don’t Move Again. Since 2009 the artist has been traveling to Haiti to set up a free, outdoor portrait studio in Port-au-Prince. Heyman is interested in questioning whether it is possible for a first world artist to produce work in the third world without voyeurism or objectification. Her project has continued to evolve over the years and now includes various expanding populations tied to future development and reconstruction.
Laura Heyman is an artist and curator based in Syracuse, New York. Her work has been exhibited at Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia, Gallery 511, New York, NY, The Deutsches Polen Institute, Darmstadt, Germany, Ampersand International Arts, San Francisco, California, Light Work Gallery, Syracuse, New York, P.S. 122, New York, NY, Senko Studio, Viborg, Denmark, and The National Portrait Gallery, London, UK. She is the recipient of a Light Work Mid Grant in Photography, NYFA Strategic Opportunity Stipend, and a Silver Eye Fellowship. Her most recent curatorial project, Who’s Afraid of America featuring the work of Justyna Badach, Larry Clark, Cheryl Dunn, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Zoe Strauss and and Tobin Yelland, was exhibited at Wonderland Art Space, in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Jared Landberg — Adirondack Power and Light, 2010
Jared Landberg is captivated by remnants, abandoned structures, overgrown paths, found ephemera, and expansive views. His site-specific photographic projects capture what is left behind in the wake of progress. Past photographic essays have included a nuclear power plant, mental health asylum, and a government munitions base. Landberg is currently photographing the community of Cortland, New York and the Hydrofracking controversy. The artist plans to create a book of photographs, archival and found photos, maps and an assortment of texts.
Jared Landberg is a photographer and bookbinder based in Syracuse, New York. He was a graduate fellow at Syracuse University and received his MFA in photography in 2010 and his BFA in photography from Indiana University in 2005. He has recently exhibited in the Syracuse area at the Everson Museum’s Fit to be Bound exhibition as well as various local galleries. He has worked as a consultant on book projects with past Light Work residents Christian Patterson and Valerio Spada in addition to assisting and consulting photographer Lucinda Devlin. Jared’s influences range from photographers such as Robert Adams, Jem Southam, Lewis Baltz, and Frank Gohlke to the writings of J.B. Jackson, Paul Virilio, and Leo Marx. He currently photographs the landscape of central New York State, with a large format camera, natural light, and flash, using both B&W and color film. His imaging intent is that of historic preservation through documentation of place with a focus on the colloquial subtlety, and personal as well as collective narratives regarding societal theories, place, and it’s usage.
Janice Levy — Falcon Market, Riyadh, KSA, 2011
Janice Levy submitted a series of photographs taken in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While living in Riyadh for ten months the artist taught photography at the largest all women university in the world, Princess Nora bint Abdulrahman University. Saudi Arabia invests in the illusion of wealth and prosperity but Levy’s photographs show something entirely different. “In addition to revealing the neglect of the underclass, the photographs reflect my own reaction to living in a nation where isolation causes xenophobia, adherence to Sharia law justifies oppression of women, and an absolute monarchy hides its dictatorial power behind a veneer of paternalism.”
Janice Levy is a professor of photography in the Department of Media, Arts, Sciences and Studies, in the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York. In 1990 she was awarded the prestigious three-year National Kellogg Fellowship Award for Leadership. The Honickman First Book Award recognized her work twice. In 2004, she was among eleven finalists for her work Out of Place, photographs from Madagascar. In 2012 she was highly ranked among 49 semi-finalists for her Saudi Arabia photographs. International Photographic Awards (IPA) awarded her an honorable mention in 2013. Publications include What I See Who I Am: disabled students explore their world through photography with the help of photography students at Princess Nora University. Recent exhibitions include Les Yeaux du Monde, Charlottesville, VA; Gallery Notre Dame, Dijon, France; Les Amis du 7, Dijon, France. She was interviewed by NPR’s Robin Young for Here and Now about her experiences teaching and living in Saudi Arabia and was the keynote speaker for the 18th Julia Reinstein Symposium, Elmira College, Elmira, New York.
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Find more information about Light Work Grants in Photography:
www.lightwork.org/grants.
VIDEO: Jason Lazarus on Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse)
/in Exhibitions, WatchCheck out Light Work’s Vimeo page for an exclusive new video with exhibiting artist Jason Lazarus. Lazarus discusses his Too Hard to Keep project, including his process of working through the vast archive of images and installing in the gallery.
Be sure to visit Light Work to catch Jason Lazarus: Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) before the show closes on May 31st!
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Special thanks to Azhar Chougle for his work on this video.
Light Work Moves Forward
/in NewsFor 40 years, Light Work’s mission has been to support artists working in photography and related media. Concentrating our support on emerging and under recognized artists, we will continue to focus on our international Artist-in-Residence program, exhibitions, the publication of Contact Sheet, and operating a state-of-the-art community access photography and computer lab.
In order to strengthen our core goals we are in the process of reorganizing our staff to better serve the current and future needs of artists. Over the past year we have completely redesigned our website, www.lightwork.org, as a platform for publishing more work by artists in our programs, established a new graphic identity, and redesigned Contact Sheet. The new design of Contact Sheet will debut with the Light Work Annual issue this summer in honor of our 40th anniversary.
In the reorganization process Jeffrey Hoone continues in his role of Executive Director. Hoone has been in a leadership position at Light Work since 1980 and will concentrate on finance and fundraising, strategic planning, and participate in selecting artists for all Light Work programs. Reflecting on the reorganization Hoone says, “Light Work has always been an organization run by artists, for artists, and the changes we are making signal our continuing effort to respond to the changing needs of artists in order to put us in the best position to meet those needs.”
Shane Lavalette has been promoted to Director and will be responsible for all administrative, artistic, fundraising, and operational activities at Light Work. Lavalette was a former Artist-in-Residence at Light Work and in his previous position as Associate Director he led the process to redesign our website and establish our new graphic identity. “This year we are looking back to celebrate Light Work’s long history of supporting artists, yet it is also a time of excitement for what the future holds,” says Lavalette.
Mary Lee Hodgens has been promoted to Associate Director and will work on all technical and artistic operations including exhibitions, publications, and the Artist-in-Residence program. Hodgens is an eighteen-year veteran at Light Work and brings her considerable skills and institutional knowledge into a leadership position. “We are always changing to keep up with the artists and their needs. It’s exciting to be part of the process,” says Hodgens.
John Mannion, who has been with the organization for twelve years, has been promoted to the new position of Master Printer and will be responsible for setting the standards for digital printing and scanning services. He will be providing all pre-press work for Contact Sheet and will provide individual service to all visiting artists and prime digital service customers. “Working with over 150 artists personally has lead to a clear method and practice to make the best prints possible,” says Mannion. “I am happy to be able to provide more support to our artists.”
Anneka Herre will continue in her position of Technical Producer for the Urban Video Project. The UVP is Light Work’s newest program that presents ongoing public art video projections and exhibitions on the outside of the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse. Information about UVP’s activities can be found online at www.urbanvideoproject.com
Julie Herman, James Suits, and Andrew Frost continue in their role as part-time support staff for customer care, administrative operations, and digital services.
In order to further enhance our digital and traditional photo lab operations we are currently searching for a full-time Digital Services Manager and a full-time Photo Lab Manager. In addition we will be adding two part-time positions of Exhibition Coordinator and Communications Coordinator. Information about these job postings can be found online at http://lg.ht/LWHiring
We are very excited about all of these positive changes at Light Work and we will continue to keep you informed about our progress in future e-mail newsletters, on our blog, and through social media, so please stay tuned.
Light Work at the PPAC Book Fair, May 18, 12-6pm
/in EventsPlease join us for the 4th annual Philadelphia Photo Arts Center Book Fair which will feature a number of local and national artists, publishers, and publishing projects. This is Philadelphia’s annual opportunity to purchase some of the most innovative image-based publications being created today.
Partial list of participants:
Printed Matter
MACK Books
Conveyor Arts
Sun System Press
ICA Philadelphia
Bodega
Megawords
Light Work
Vox Populi
PhotoBookArts
Houseboat Press
Bryan Graf
Justin Kimball
Tom Young
Justin Audet
Dan Boardman
Lisa Kereszi
Dominic Episcopo
Stephanie Bursese
With titles available from:
Little Brown Mushroom
TBW Books
Spaces Corners / Ed Panar
Public Fiction
Daniel Shea
Brian Ulrich
+ more!
Find more information on the PPAC website.
Hank Willis Thomas on Light Work
/in From the FilesHank Willis Thomas
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See a selection of Hank Willis Thomas’ work on his Light Work artist page.
Order a signed copy of Hank Willis Thomas’ book Pitch Blackness in the Light Work Shop.
A Conversation with Jason Lazarus
/in InterviewsIn 2010 Chicago-based artist Jason Lazarus initiated a living archive of photos deemed “too hard to keep.”
Too Hard to Keep is a place for photographs, photo albums, photo-objects, and even digital files to exist when they are too difficult to hold on to, yet too meaningful to destroy. Participants have dictated whether the photographs submitted to the archive may be shown freely with other pieces of the archive, or if they are only to be displayed face down, adding to the charged significance of individual objects.
With the exhibition Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) Lazarus shares a slice of the larger archive and invites anonymous local submissions in a carefully considered installation at Light Work.
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Shane Lavalette: The idea of being the one responsible for all things “too hard to keep” seems daunting! What compelled you to start this archive?
Jason Lazarus: First, it needed to happen; I am the type of person who would participate in this project! Second, over the past few years I have been increasingly been interested in the vernacular—collecting, editing, curating images for additional meaning as I encounter them. For me it’s as urgent and compelling as making my own original image with a camera, and my photographic practice simultaneously embraces both these days.
This project, once conceived, grew organically as I reached out to my immediate network, and the earnestness of the submissions invigorates the labor and care needed to administer them.
SL: This ‘earnestness’ is palpable in viewing the archive. One can feel it. I’m always amazed at how over the course of an image’s life, our feelings toward it can shift from joy, to anger, indifference, or deep sadness. Of course it’s different for every circumstance, but how would you characterize this overwhelming need to part with an object, and more specifically, a photograph?
JL: One note about the presentation strategy: I want the viewer to feel my relationship to the images as well—that this is not a distanced, museumological, and sterile archive but an artist-run project that has a feeling and imperfect hand guiding the materials. Regarding parting with things, we’re always an amalgam of our past, the present, and our idea of our future—objects come and go as we need them. Letting go of photographs is more about the future than the past…
Jason Lazarus: Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) at Light Work
SL: Do you find yourself conflicted when installing such personal items in the context of an art exhibition?
JL: No, I’m more conflicted with how to create strategies to relay the tension of each entry. Sometimes installation strategies can undermine the whole project, and other times they underscore the epic qualities innate to the archive
SL: I love the fact that you’ve allowed certain images or objects to be exhibited but concealed at the request of the former owner—in the case of photographic prints, by just showing the backs of them. How do you see these in conversation with the other images?
JL: The images submitted as private and therefore exhibited face down are vital—they say as much about the owners (and the rest of us) as the most potent images we get to see. Quietly, and still visually, they have much to say. They are activated by the public images, and vice versa. The audience is asked to consider them as placeholders, as open narrative, as truly charged and thus, in a way, dangerous.
SL: Charged? Dangerous? Interesting use of words… Can you elaborate?
JL: They are symbolic of our own worst fears… they can be projected upon without limit.
Jason Lazarus: Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) at Light Work
SL: How would you describe the themes that arise in the archive? Do you find patterns, oddities, clichés?
JL: Yes, they couch everything from singularity to cliché as any large group of vernacular images might. Their unifying thread in this archive, the fact that they are “too hard to keep,” folds the familiar patterns and tropes of the private vernacular into a refreshed tension—they are taut…
SL: What have you found to be the most moving submissions? Is there one in particular that continues to strike you?
JL: My relationship with the archive and all of its contents is always in flux. Landscapes in the archive can be phenomenally powerful. To have an outdoor expanse implicated is for me fascinating and I can relate to this sometimes more easily than an image of a person who I don’t know. The private images are always moving to me when installed. They are obstinate, they refuse to bore the viewer with content, they are completely elemental in this project—all charge, no window.
SL: I’m glad you touched on this. There are certain images which may be hard for some viewers to imagine why they are “too hard to keep”—a landscape, a building, an abstraction. I find these to be the most powerful…
JL: Yes, there is a sort of slow violence about the most static images.
SL: You recently opened the archive up to digital submissions, and even offered your personal cell phone number for anyone to anonymously text images to you. In what way are these submissions different than the physical ones?
JL: I’m not sure yet, as I’ve only been receiving digital submissions for a relatively short period of time. Certainly I miss the objecthood of these entries, and the stories the photos-as-objects may have can’t be immediately seen (yellowing, wear and tear, handwriting, etc). On the other hand, receiving them unexpectedly on my phone, in the middle of a normal day, out of thin air, is poetically very rewarding. Someone’s personal narrative literally interrupts mine. It’s an unexpected shock, a signal, a moment of camaraderie…
Jason Lazarus: Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) at Light Work
SL: This makes me wonder… How do you view our relationship to, say, ‘photo albums’ on Facebook to the dusty ones in the closet? Can we have the same sentimentality or pain result from a digital file as a photographic print?
JL: It’s not for me to say. I feel lucky to be living at a time when one image paradigm is leading to another, and I can actively question both from a sense of heightened awareness and perspective.
Now that personal photos are digitized, it’s interesting to watch them, like water, effortlessly find their way quickly into new crevices and reservoirs far from their original source.
SL: What is your process of engaging with a local community, for example Syracuse?
JL: When possible, I will make myself available to a community for one day of personal pickups. I’ll dedicate 8-10 hours of being on call so community members can submit to the project in person without much effort on their part. Going to where the photos live is, for me, a unique and rare opportunity to understand their history and context better, even if the eventual audience is not privy to this information. It helps me become a better curator and artist within the archive’s parameters.
SL: Do you see an end in sight, or is the Too Hard to Keep archive a life-long commitment?
JL: T.H.T.K. is a life-long project, and I have found a colleague, Aron Gent of Chicago, to take it over in case something unexpected should happen to me. This way I can ensure some continuity to the archive and its format, as well as reciprocate the faith that the public has put into the project.
SL: With Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) the site-specific installation of selected images and objects from the archive will also live on in publication form, as an issue of Contact Sheet. How will these images change when reproduced in the pages of the book? Who do you hope discovers this catalogue?
JL: I’m not sure actually, as the project hasn’t been published yet. I have instincts about what may happen, but it’s a puzzle—I’m interested in finding ways to keep the tension alive and complex when the actual object is no longer at arms reach.
Unlike a lot of other contemporary image based work where you significantly benefit from having studied photographic history and theory, the audience for this project starts with everyone…
Jason Lazarus: Too Hard to Keep (Syracuse) at Light Work
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Jason Lazarus is a Chicago-based artist, curator, writer, and educator who received his MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2003. Lazarus has actively exhibited around the country and abroad while teaching photography at Columbia College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Selected exhibition highlights include Black Is, Black Aint at the Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL; Image Search at PPOW Gallery, New York, NY; On the Scene at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; and solo exhibitions at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Kaune, Sudendorf, Cologne, Germany; and D3 Projects, Los Angeles, CA. Notable honors include the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship, 2010; an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship award, 2009; the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award, Emerging Artist, 2008; and the Emerging Artist Artadia Grant, 2006. His work can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and the Bank of America LaSalle Photography collection, among many others. Lazarus is represented by Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL.
www.jasonlazarus.com
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Interested in submitting to the T.H.T.K. archive?
Drop off your print anonymously in the drop box located at Light Work during the length of the exhibition. If you are not local, you can submit to the artist directly by following the instructions at toohardtokeep.blogspot.com
Light Work’s New Identity
/in News, Studio VisitIn celebration of Light Work’s 40th anniversary we’re pleased to launch a new identity in conjunction with this brand new website!
More on the website soon. First, lets talk identity… Over the past months we’ve been working closely with Michael Dyer and the team at the Brooklyn-based design firm Remake to develop this new look for the organization — from the logo, to the typefaces, and the pages of Contact Sheet, Mike and his team have carefully developed a more current aesthetic for the oraganization. We couldn’t be happier with the result.
To kick things off, we thought it’d be nice to chat with Mike about the process of developing Light Work’s new identity and show some behind-the-scenes moments of the studio and the design process. Enjoy!
Remake studio, Brooklyn, NY
Shane Lavalette: Tell us about Remake and your approach to design.
Michael Dyer: I started Remake after many years of working for other studios in Washington DC and New York. Remake is intended to be a distillation of my approach to design, which is the reason I started the studio — to put principles directly into practice. Those principles grow out of a concern for the social responsibility of design, and a belief that anything one designs has to justify its existence by contributing to a qualitative improvement in the world. This may sound rather grand, but I really do see design as part of the production of culture.
Remake’s clients tend to often be from allied disciplines — architects, photographers, artists, galleries, museums, etc — although we work with plenty of corporations and businesspeople as well. Variety in clients and projects is important to me. That said, Remake specializes in two areas: corporate/brand identity, and printed publications (with a focus on books).
Remake studio, Brooklyn, NY
SL: Reinventing the identity of an organization is a challenging task, especially one as old as Light Work (this year marks our 40th year of supporting artists!). What was your approach in considering possible directions?
MD: In some ways the overall process that we employ for designing a visual identity is rather consistent, and has simply been developed/refined through experience. However, every project requires adjustments to this underlying process. Clients differ, communication objectives differ, audiences differ — all this has to be factored into the approach. But the basic methodology is a strong one and forms the backbone of our process which begins with in-depth discussions and identification of communication objectives, then progresses into exploration, development, refinement, and application of the design system.
When collaborating with Light Work, we had 40 years of history behind the conversations about where we were headed with the new identity. This provided a fantastic foundation on which to build. It also meant that we got a very concise explanation of what makes Light Work what it is, and its exceptionally unique and inspiring support of artists and their work. So we were very well equipped to judge the quality and efficacy of our work as it progressed from inception to application.
Light Work logo, 2013
SL: The new Light Work logo is minimal, geometric, modern, and is open to a variety of interpretations. How would you describe the ideas behind it?
MD: The new Light Work logo is comprised of two interlocking L shapes that suggest a shifting of perspective and a dialogue or synthesis between two- and three-dimensional form. (I say “suggest” because I think design is stronger when ideas are implied rather than when they are illustrated.) The square at its center represents light emanating from the surrounding form of a frame; it also suggests a view into or out of a space described by that same surrounding form. The square can also be read as representing the individual artist, supported by Light Work as the contextual structure around them.
The symbol being open to multiple viewpoints is, I think, critical to its success. People have to be able to invest a design with their own meaning to an extent. Designing things that are excessively didactic or literal is patronizing to the viewer and limits their ability to participate in the experience.
The new Light Work logo came after a long process of sketching, both by hand and on the computer. I’m a pretty loose sketcher, but there were a couple drawings that had a spark that would eventually lead to the solution, although it took a while for them to reveal themselves. In between, probably a couple hundred different designs were studied on the computer. Once the basic symbol had been designed it went through dozens of iterations. We considered the weight of the form, its compression, its color, how close or far apart the two L shapes were, etc. (And that’s even before we got into how it related to any typography.)
Light Work identity design process, Remake, Brooklyn, NY
SL: As designers, what is your approach to creating a lasting identity? What makes an organizations ‘look’ hold up for 10, 50, 100 years?
MD: 100 years is a tall order. But, yes, a constant concern in identity design, for me, is durability. I don’t endorse the cynical rapidity with which things sometimes change in the design world, especially in identity design where you are operating very near the heart of the institution or business. The process of designing an identity shouldn’t be one of prettifying or applying a cosmetic veneer — it should reach deep into the meaning and being of the organization and express something fundamental. It has to find a bit of the spirit of the organization, and that’s hard to do.
First, as a designer, I think you have to resist the urge to partake in superficial trends. Trends exist to expire. You are doing a client a tremendous disservice by using them as an excuse to participate in the Hot-New-Thing. Second, I think starting from a place of economy is best. Simple designs often endure, when they are carefully conceived and implemented. Third, I think the best work grows from a conceptual and formal synthesis — they are strong ideas expressed in powerful forms. Fourth, and most importantly, a designer has to listen to their client, carefully. This comes before all else. This is how you create something of substance that embodies fidelity to the spirit of the organization.
SL: The photographers and their work are always at the center of what Light Work does as an organization. How does design emphasize this?
MD: Yes, absolutely. Understanding the centrality of the photographers and their work was essential to developing the identity system, and the re-designed Contact Sheet and Light Work Annual as well. As I mentioned above, it’s even subtly referred to in the design of the new symbol itself.
We decided early on that the design system should be relatively quiet. It needed to be strong, it needed to be distinctive, but these did not preclude understatement. Details, always important, assumed an even greater weight. At all points we had to ensure that we were solving the communication problems, but in a manner that not only respected, but enhanced the presentation of the work. By addressing a range of design issues we were also creating a better overall setting within which the artists’ work could exist. In general, I feel the restraint and clarity of the new system is what allows the photographers’ work to really come through, take center stage, and shine.
Light Work identity design process, Remake, Brooklyn, NY
SL: In ‘Remaking’ (excuse the pun) the Contact Sheet, what were some of the biggest changes? What should subscribers be excited about?
MD: Well, the biggest changes have to do with pacing and rhythm. We have worked hard to create something that has a meaningful ebb and flow as a reader/viewer moves through the piece. Engineering a sensitive typographic system has a lot to do with this, as does the structure of the underlying grid on which the design is built. But it’s also about using space more efficiently and dramatically, and color as well, to a more limited extent. We wanted to create a more nuanced atmosphere; this is something that can be very powerful when handled with discernment.
And I feel this is what everyone should be most excited about: the artists’ work will continue to be varied and of exceptional quality; we are just fine-tuning the overall experience of absorbing, contemplating, and responding to that work within the Contact Sheet‘s pages. It’s been extremely exciting for me as well.
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Subscribe to Contact Sheet to be sure to get the first newly designed issue. Arriving in mailboxes Summer 2013!