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NEWS SERVICES |
NEWS
| For immediate use |
May 28, 2003 -- No. 306 |
Photo note: See end of story for photo information.
Major themes of photography explored in Ackland exhibition
By ANDY BERNER
Ackland Art Museum
CHAPEL HILL -- "Defining Moments: Two Centuries of Photography," an exhibition opening June 8 at the Ackland Art Museum, will highlight how photographers inform and shape our vision of the world.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill museum will display 90 images, drawn from the Ackland’s permanent collection of 1,500 photographs, dating from the 1840s to the present. The photographs will be grouped by themes that have historically defined the medium's history: landscape, nature close up, architecture, shapes of industry, the city, social documentary, portraits and travel.
A section devoted to photographic processes will focus on how images have been created, beginning with the daguerreotype and including the most recent innovations in color photography.
"The works in this exhibition represent moments, both historically significant and intimately personal, defined by photographers as they filter and frame visual information," said Barbara Matilsky, co-curator of the exhibition and the Ackland’s curator of exhibitions. "In contrast to the fast-moving images of film, television and video, photographs allow viewers to linger and reflect on people, places and events that are suspended in time."
During the first half of "Defining Moments" -- June 8 through Aug. 17 -- 18 additional photographs from private collections will be displayed on free-standing walls within the gallery spaces. This grouping, fourth in a series of ongoing mini-exhibitions at the Ackland called "Carolina Collectors," showcases artworks owned by collectors who live in North Carolina or are alumni and associates of the university.
For the second part of the "Defining Moments" -- from Aug. 24 through Sept. 28 -- the "Carolina Collectors" photographs on the free-standing walls will be replaced by 10 potential photography purchases. This exhibition within an exhibition, titled "Collecting Photography: A Community Dialogue," will enable visitors to participate in selecting photographs by writing comments at a kiosk in the gallery. The museum’s curators then will give strong consideration to visitor comments in acquiring photographs that both expand and deepen the Ackland’s collection. At an Ackland members-only exhibition closing party on Sept. 25, the curators will reveal their choices.
Eleven landscape photographs on display in "Defining Moments" celebrate both nature’s panoramic scale and intimate abstract patterns. Many works interpret the impact of society on natural resources. While George H. Seeley’s "Stream in Winter" (ca. 1910) captures the beauty of nature, Frank Jay Haynes' "Granite Silver Mine, Montana Territory" (1887) and Edward Burtynsky's "Rock of Ages #14, Abandoned Granite Section, E.I. Smith Quarry, Barre, Vermont" (1992) encourage reflection on the consequences of the intersection of nature and culture.
"Because photography can accurately capture detailed observations of nature close up, it shares a symbiotic relationship with scientific exploration." said Cathy Keller-Brown, exhibition co-curator and assistant curator of exhibitions at the Ackland.
Anna Atkins demonstrates such an alliance between art and science at an early date in her photogram of a fern (1851-54), an image made without a camera by placing the object directly on paper exposed to light. The relationship with science finds contemporary expression in the work of Giraud Foster and Norman Barker, who photographed an ammonite fossil through an electron microscope in the 1990s.
Within the section on architecture, ruins express the transience of ancient cultures in Paul Caponigro's "Stonehenge Portfolio" (1967-1972). Ansel Adams’ "Textures" (1938) and Aaron Siskind’s "Acolman 2" (1955) suggest similar meditations on the recent past by focusing attention on deteriorating wall fragments.
The modern shapes of industrial construction and design also have fascinated photographers: Ralston Crawford dramatizes the abstract patterns of the Grand Coulee Dam (1971); Gyorgy Kepes interprets the monumentality of towers; and Louis Faurer portrays the gleaming appeal of streamlined automobiles (ca. 1950).
The cities of New York, Paris, London and Moscow provide the inspiration for photographs of streetscapes and people by Berenice Abbot, Eugene Atget, Alvin Langdon Coburn, William Klein and Lisette Model. While some photographers capture the city's vibrant and chaotic pulse, others revel in the austere beauty of its empty spaces. By contrast, photographers like Robert Frank and Nan Golden focus their cameras on the people whose feelings of alienation helped define a key aspect of metropolitan life.
The themes of social documentary embrace a myriad of subjects, including war (Roger Fenton's photographs of the Crimea, 1855), child labor (Lewis Hine's "Cotton Spinner, Lancaster Cotton Mills, South Carolina," 1908), and the right of assembly (Garry Winogrand's pro-war rally in New York City, 1969). Dorothea Lange represents the lighter side of life in her view of baseball players at a general store in Chapel Hill (1930s), as does Max Yavno in his beach scene in Southern California (1949).
"Defining Moments" showcases the Ackland collection's rich array of intriguing portraits. In Lewis Carroll’s "Xie Kitchin Seated in a Turner’s Chair" (early 1870s), the artist interprets his young friend’s defiant independence. Other portraits in the exhibition, such as Brassai's "Picasso with Stove" (1939), Julia Margaret Cameron’s "Portrait of Thomas Carlyle" (1867) and Arnold Newman's "Igor Stravinsky" (1946), provide insights into some of the luminaries who have shaped history.
Many photographers have responded to the public’s fascination with other cultures. The 19th-century photographs of J. Pascal Sebah cater to European interest in the Middle East. By contrast, Edward Sheriff Curtis’ forty-volume study of Native Americans addresses western civilization's threat to indigenous peoples. For "The Potter" (1907), Curtis clothes a woman in traditional costume and uses a soft-focus approach to create a romanticized image of an endangered culture.
"Defining Moments: Two Centuries of Photography" is planned to travel to other museums in the United States after its Ackland stop. It is accompanied by a 16-page publication with 12 illustrations. The Ackland is on South Columbia Street near Franklin Street. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is free. For more information, call 919-843-1611 (recorded information), 919-966-5736 (museum office), 919-962-0837 (TTY) or visit the Web site at www.ackland.org.
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Exhibit urls:
Ackland contact: Andy Berner, 919-966-5736
News Services contact: Mike McFarland, 919-962-8593
