Photography Center Quarterly #58

PHOTOGRAPHY

AtKodak,webelievewheneverphotographers gathertorenewtheirvisionandsharpentheirskills,theyexpandthelanguageofphotography.

Whichiswhyweareproudtosponsorthisworkshop.

-PH O TO G RA -pH Y

CE NT E R QUARTERLY

Artists'Portfoliosselectedby DerekJohnston& LawrenceLewis

Fessler LisaG. Corrin

INTRODUCTION

This issue carries D.fil'.Ynews: work, selected by Derek Johnston and Larry Lewis, by Center members, of whom we asked the questions: "What represents today? What pictures present the current time? What images herald the future?" We were seeking a pictorial chronicle of the modern pulsethe beat, the rhythm of this age; an essay on recently hired Sheryl Conkleton at the Museum of Modern Art; an article on the work of Ann Fessler, who created a never-before-seen Center installation; and news of current events at our artistic home.

EDUCATION: The summer/fall 1993 Workshop and Lecture Program, coordinated by Fawn Potash, was supported by the work of three interns: Pauline Hubert, Beldan Kurosman (both from Vassar College), and Ceci Marquette from SUNY, New York. In their words:

"One important discovery for me was that there are an infinite number of possibilities for careers in photography Each photographer I met this summer had discovered a place in photography where he or she could find happiness as well as earn a living. I realized that photography is not a field I have to make myself fit into, but a field in which I can find a unique place for myself. Helping to run the workshops gave me many skills in creative problem-solving. My summer experience gave me the inspiration and confidence I need in order to

advance my own work in photography'c....Beldan Kurosman

''The internship allowed me to look at the photography world from the inside. Observing different photographers' approaches to their field gave me perspective by comparing the workshops and absorbing the various views of photography This variety was by far the most beneficial aspect of being an intern. The internship gave me more than I expected and is a stepping stone of opportunity"

-Pauline Hubert

"The Center for Photography at Woodstock is a picture takers'place. It is a family environment that helps create a feeling of acceptance for all who take part in the activities, such as lectures, weekend workshops, and people milling around its unintimidating gallery Everyone comes with a story to tell as well as the time to share it. This summer I had the wonderful opportunity of working as an intern at the Center. I had a grand learning experience. The Center for Photography has given me the knowledge of my creative abilities."-Ceci Marquette

The Center produced New York City programs in September at Sheila Metzner's studio and at the Polaroid 20x24 studio with Timothy GreenfieldSanders; and we held a Collecting Symposium moderated by Penelope Dixon. Panelists included Cheryl Finley, Randy Plummer, Howard Greenberg, Robert Persky, Alan Klotz, and Beth Gates-Warren. We thank the hosts, Susan and Bart Ferris. This event was free to Center members. The season's finale was Mark Arbeit's Art and Fashion one-week workshop in Paris.

EXHIBITION: Our annual Building Links November/December exhibition, Picturing Ritual, curated for the Center by Cornelia Butler, included the work of Gregory Crewdson, Jeanne Dunning, Doug lschar, Elaine Tin Nyo, Jack Pierson, Lorna Simpson, and Carolien Stikker. Two parallel shows-a video exhibit curated by Micki McGee, and a weekend film series screened by Peggy Ahwesh, Peter Hutton, and John Pruitt-amplified the theme of ritual. The video and photography exhibitions travel to the Neuberger Museum (Pur-

chase, New York), January/February 1994. Other Center shows are traveling too: Encountering Difference, curated by Elizabeth Ferrer, and a video program put together by Adolfo Patino, has been to Pennsylvania, California, and Arizona. Social Studies/Public Monuments, a photography project co-curated by Sarah M. Lowe and Virginia Rutledge, and a video exhibition assembled by James Supanick, left the Center for display in Kansas. Our ongoing show, Selections from the Collection, was on view at the Resource Center for Accessible Living (Kingston, New York) and at the College Art Gallery, the College at New Paltz/SUNY. Curator Neil Trager writes:

"This exhibition truly is one in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts: in addition to providing us with a delightful opportunity to see the vast range of ideas and talent that artists in our region have, the exhibition also acknowledges the broader and more far-reaching contribution that have been made to the Hudson Valley by the Center for Photography at Woodstock. It is fair to say that anyone in this region who makes photographs or who is interested in seeing good photography knows the Center well. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to be associated with the Center, and I am particularly pleased to present this exhibition, which acknowledges the efforts of its founders, staff, and members. The Center has made a lasting contribution, not only to the Hudson Valley, but to all who know and love photography"

SERVICES: Begun in 1993, the Center's Sli_d_e .8.eQi.sm'.includes work by individual photographers: each artist's file contains one sheet of twenty slides, a resume, and a statement of purpose. This is a permanent archive made available to educators, students, curators, and collectors. The staff uses the archive from which to select solo shows. This registry is open to members and non-members. We welcome artists-regional, national, and international-to submit to the registry.

FUNDRAISING: Our October Benefit Auction was a success and we thank all who participated. Special gratitude goes to the artists who donated their work; and to Cheryl Finley, auction consultant. We welcome Julie Saul, Director of the Julie Saul Gallery (New York City) and Susan Ferris to our Advisory Board.

Thanks to Advisory Board Member, Beth GatesWarren, the Center will have lots in the Sotheby's Auction Saturday April 23, 1994 sale. We are grateful to Advisor Ellen Carey for her work on this project.

-Kathleen Kenyon, Editor

CENTERQuarterlyis publishedby the Centerfor Photographyat Woodstock(CPW),59 TinkerStreet,Woodstock,NY 12498.Copyright1994,theCenterfor Photographyat Woodstock.All rightsreserved.Nopartof the contents maybe reproducedwithou1wri11enpermissionof the publisher.All worksillustratedin the Quarterlyarecopyrightedby the individualartistswho producedthem;copyrightfor essaysbelongsto the authors.All opinions,ideas,and illustrationsare thoseof the writersandartis1sthemselvesanddo not in any wayrepresentofficialpolicyof CPWor its membership.All manuscriptsand art worksubmi11edmustincludeSASEfor return.The Center,whilefaking all reasonablecare,cannotbe responsiblefor unsolicitedmaterials.ISSN0890-4634.Printedby Kenner Printing Co.,Inc., NewYork City. The CENTERQuarterlyis distributed by Bernhard De Boers, Inc., 113East Centre Street, Nutley, New Jersey 07110. Editor, KathleenKenyon; Assistant Editor, DerekJohnston;Copy Editor, Joan Munkacsi;Ad Manager, LawrenceP. Lewis; Typesetting, Digital Design Studio, Kings1on.NY.

TO SUBSCRIBETO THE CENTERQUARTERLY:Join the Centeras a SubscribingMember.For $25/year,you/I receivefourissuesof ourphotographymagazine;Canada/Mexico$40year, International$45 year. Membership is taxdeductibleto the extentof theJawandservesto matchthe Center'scurrentNEAAdvancementgrant. Youmayjoin by check(payableto CPW),MC,or VISA.If yourcompanyhasa matchinggiffprogram,pleaseuseit to increase yoursupportof theCenter.GiffSubscriptionsareavailable.Writeus at 59 TinkerStreet.Woodstock,New York12498or telephone/914)679-9957.Cover:© 1993Ann Fessler,de1ailfromRuben'sRapeof theDaughtersof Leucippus.

The I 993 WorkshopInterns

(Clockwise from top) Ricci Racela, Macamalama, Judith Harold-Steinhauser, RootWoman, Suzanne Snyder Jacobson, from the NursingHomeSeries, Cyndy Warwick, Movealittlecloser

Jurors

Lawrence P.Lewis

Derek Johnston

The work submitted for our review covered a broad spectrum of ideas and technique. From such diversity I based my selection on original work that stimulates the imagination, provides a sense of visual delight, and awakens our hearts to a truth beyond our own time-that we can acknowledge and share in a personal experience. If some of these photographs do not seem to comment directly on what our present place in time is like, they may serve as a reminder that the artists' quest remains the same: a passionate search for meaning, beauty, and form. In following that quest, Goethe urges us to remember: "Notinthatheleavessomething behindhim,butinthatheworksandenjoys andstirsotherstoworkandenjoyment,does mansimportancelie. "Lawrence

P. Lewis

Irseemed so familiar, yet impossible. All that I knew and aspired to know was accessible. At times it is possible to be centered; ro find peace with what is supposed to be, but never really was. Out of the darkness came a soft blue haze. A voice spoke of a man who lost his mind and killed the people on their way to sanity. They would not be coming home today. I longed for the simple pleasures that had just escaped me.

As we move through a life we struggle to find meaning and a place in the world we have created. Derek Johnston

Deland, Florida

By using contemporary visual allegories and parables I seek to explore issues of beauty, and one's sense of being. The images symbolize contemporary icons of personal relationships, which communicate to ochers the variety of human relationships we all have.

I wane my pictures to be visually exciting while having something to say about the aesthetics of photography. I'm amazed at the medium's ability to be so flexible. Thar I can rip images and scratch transparencies while juxtaposing real and artificial space and still have the image hold together, is compelling.

Paying homage to the snap-shoe genre by incorporating it into a studio image, I'm constantly caking advantage of the medium's ability to be self-referential. And, by combining varied genre in one image I hope to allow the medium to comment upon itself.

Juxtaposing the hand drawn image with char of the machine; the work illustrates the ability to produce a new amalgam.

DANMcCoRMAck

Accord, New York

The Nimslo series continues the exploration of more than one moment in rime. Working in a medium with an inherent ability to stop rime, I am seeking an elusive goal; a flow of rime, an implied action, or a suggested emotion, not resolved in any one image bur revealed in the rime between the moments.

These images acknowledge the morion studies of Edweard Muybridge of over a hundred years ago and also the more recent extended frame explorations of Ray Metzker, Barbara Blondeau, and William Larson.

Dan McCormack, (above) ValerieMarch9,1993, # 13, (right) RetaJanuary12,1993,#14 (fromtheNimsloseries)

Allan Maxwell, (left) StarryNight, (below) WomansSin, (below left) KidsontheBlock

CyNdy WARwick

New York, New York

Television reflects the nation's contemporary state of mind.

still photographs stop time. fragments are selected and frozen, allowing us to experience subliminal impressions by taking them out of their hypnotic context.

Television is alluring because it creates the illusion that you are living a more exciting and sanitized version of life.

we can instantly alter it, unlike our real livesspeed it up, slow it down, change channels. the question, is it being used to uplift or corrupt, to enrich or control?

viewers need to be awake and aware in order to hear what it going on within themselves.

It can implant manipulative ideas into the unwary mind.

Television seemsto have power over us, but it's actually we who have the power over television.

the whole world is watching with just the push of a button

Cindy Warwick, (clockwise from top left)

Hand,ThoseWonderfulYears,

DAvid D. JOHNSON

Seattle, Washington

I want my photographs to serve as a wake up call to the deteriorating condition of our environment.

I enjoy photographing nature and artificial representations of nature, mixing them so the viewer is left wondering what is real and what is an illusion. On the surface, my photographs may seem humorous, but at a deeper level they contain a very sad message of lack of concern and impending danger!

I do not expect my photographs to change the world ... maybe, they will open a few eyes.

Johnson, (clockwise from lefc) GorillaGrab,LastExit, OceanFloor

RobiN DRu GERMANY

Rhome, Texas

The photographs here are part of a larger body of work which explores the basic human act of perception. We apprehend our world using certain assumptions, pre-existing structures into which we force our experience. This work distorts the structures, bends and stretches them, so they are unrecognizable. These illogical combinations demand that you abandon traditional modes of understanding and creace new ways to know che world, invescigace new possibilities. We chink we know ... we chink chis is che same world we experienced yesterday. le is not. This work is a call to look more closely, more carefully, and consider new caccics.

David

Robin Dru Germany, (righc) Expose, (below) Delnvinkorator

Ricci RAcELA Keaau, Hawaii

A person's eyes are windows into their soul. In Facescapes I photographed faces of friends and family. Layering torn pieces of photographs and paper underneath the portrait aid in telling a story, a biography, of that person as I perceive them. The whole collage is then re-photographed and blown up so that each piece can rake on a new life.

JENNifERKARAdy

New York, New York

I attempt to challenge the mythology of"the feminine" and explore the dichotomy between the active and passive roles we play. Notions of beauty, love, marital/domestic bliss, are sacred cul rural myths that continue to mold and confine our identities. By breaking the traditional codes of representation, particularly those of the female nude, I hope to provide alternative ways of viewing and empowering the female subject.

One of these women is screaming. She has discovered her voice, her power, an energy and rage which is specifically female. The unleashing of her emotions and frustration represents a primal moment, the genesis of an individual... the birth of her own fable sans Eve.

Ricci Racela, (right) Pele, (below right) Somewhere/mid,, (below) KingKoa

Jennifer Karady (below) TheBlueBride, (below left) lnstmmentrofTorture

PE<~CiYElioT

New York, New York

I am a detective. I gather information about the world I live in and the people I know.

I like to photograph people I know well.

I want my photographs to show how much I admire them.

I wait for a gesture or a quiet moment that illuminates the connection between me and my subject.

I love taking pictures. It brings excitement and joy into my life.

THOMAS BRENNAN

Burlington, Vermont

I have been making portraits of people who have scars. When I exhibit these portraits, I usually include a brief text written by the person portrayed. Scars are evidence of personal encounters with chance, of choices made, of vulnerability, and of desire.

Peggy Eliot, (left) AlbertandAce, (below) Deenie, (below left) NickandGabriel

Tom Brennan, (above) lmmanuelleGalicher, (above right) YvetteFlores

Suzanne Snyder Jacobson, from rhe series InMyGrandmothersHome

SuzANNE S. JAcobsoN

Virginia Beach, Virginia

I am creating a body of work that is a pictorial chronicle of this age-people in nursing homes. I have titled the whole body, InMy Grandmother'sHome. My reason is two-fold. My paternal Grandmother, who was very influential in my life, was a photographer in the early l 900's, and it 1s probable that all of us will have a Grandmother or grandmother figure that will be in a retirement home.

These seniors are a new generation of this century and the next. I want to show the truth-both good and bad -of what it is like to grow old in a nursing home. I want our fears to be alleviated, so that we will visit with them. I want you to go into their home through my images and not be one of the "paper children" on their walls. Please join me InMyGrandmother'sHome.

JANE AldEN STEVENS

Cincinnati, Ohio

In 1991, I began to create a series of photographs in response to the intense personal experiences a small group of women friends and I began having at the time, all of which related to our aging, fertility, and family changes. All of us found an alarming increase in the fragility and rate of change in our bodies.

It was no coincidence that we were between 35-45 when these events started to occur. It is natural for a woman at this stage oflife to begin looking more closely at issues of birth, death, and aging, if for no other reason than that our ability to bear a child begins to lessen rapidly during these years, and our bodies begin to segway into their post-childbearing states.

Jane Alden Stevens, (above) MoonPhases, (above right) Memorial#1, (right) Blessed

FRANk WARd

Ashfield, Massachusem

These images are from a senes reacting to the genre of portrait photography. These are portraits chat obscure rather than reveal, and lie rather than probe for truth.

The subjects were asked to act out emotional states. I then printed these in order to provide a field for marking and inscribing a personal response. The textured and often colorful results were re-photographed and tided with excerpts from Tibetan Buddhist scriptures which question the illusory nature of the world.

Frank Ward, (right) He RenouncedWorldlyAffairs, (far right) ToAwakenFromSleep, (below right) DropletsofSpit

JudiTH HARold-STEiNHAUSER Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Duality pulls me forward with heat as intense as a bonfire, promising cheer and nourishment; eat shadows ... breathe light, eat light. .. breathe shadows. Duality pulls me forward, lingering at the place where the sensual and the spiritual live.

Judith Harold-Steinhauser, (opposite) PotionMan, (below) VanishWoman

Photography from Now On The RIGHT Curator at

Sheryl Conkelton is the newest member of the Museum of Modern Art's Photography department, which she joined after six years at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her appointment is an event of considerable interest to the photography community. \Ne watch the inscrutable giant MOMA carefully to interpret the significance of its every decision in terms of the public life of the photographic medium. Peter Galassi's succession of John Szarkowski was welcome but intriguingly hard to read: did this portent bespeak continuity of tradition? generational change? new emphasis upon scholarship rather than the traditional pure informed formalism? Galassi's and Susan Kismaric's choice of a new colleague is the most visible indication of what is in store for the future at the museum.

It is impossible to overstate the influence of MOMA in photography but not impossible to question or critique it, as various writers have done in recent years. MOMA photography has been astonishingly central in the history of the medium; its collections and resources are so vast and rich that it is unquestionably an institution of authority. This status was achieved largely through the prescience of John Szarkowski, who parlayed his talent for spotting photographers' talent into a virtual one-man review board for admission to photography's canon. But is this system still working or suited to the present times? Has MOMA anointed the photographers we want and need to the new generation of overnight success stories?

The later Szarkowski years lacked the extraordinary sureness and brilliance of the earlier and middle periods of his reign. They occurred at a time when art and photography communities were beginning to redefine their work in interesting new ways that emphasized the gulf opening between the MOMA high formalist tradition and the race/class/gender-issuestheory developments on other fronts. The Guerilla Girls and any other monitors of diversity who are watching certainly have room to criticize MOMA photography, and its role as cuttingedge arbiter has been redefined as alternative spaces and museums with quicker institutional reaction times have become more prominent. Increasingly, artists and critics, rather than museums, have been articulating the agendas of photography.

MOMA has yet to address itself to

any of the larger questions of postmodernity as a cultural phenomenon in a serous way. But is that its job? \Nhat does an American museum of modern art (i.e., a museum of modernism) do when modernism is officially declared 0.0.A. by a bunch of French philosophers, and when the motion is seconded by international academics and accepted by artists from coast to coast? For the first fifty years of its history MOMA photogra-

phy was in the business of making and endorsing traditions-is it now able only to maintain those traditions, or can it continue to set or meet the pace? Many of the best shows at the museum in recent years have been historical ones, while the contemporary exhibitions have seemed earnest but off-kilter.

Are these harsh judgments? Yes, and they should be. \Nhy let MOMA get away with less than excellence? Its re-

Annette Message,, My Vows (Mes Vouex), 1988 - 91, gelatin-silver prints, colored graphite on paper, string, glass, black tape, and push pins on black paper approximatley 11x6½'. Gift of the Norton Family Foundation 1992. (Courtesy The Museum of Modem Art, New York City)

the RIGHT Museum at the RIGHT Time.?

sources (pictorial, human, and economic) and history give photographers, critics, students, and the public a right to expect superb programming, scholarship, and curatorial skill. MOMA is an international museum vvhose public extends far beyond the insular Manhattan arts community, and its actions have the vvidest influence. What, then, about Sheryl Conkelton at MOMA? Is she to be part of the museum's ansvver to the issues and problems I've sketched here? Who is she, and vvhat vvill her curatorial presence at MOMA mean, especially for photographers?

Friendly, smart, lovv-key, stylish and practical, Conkelton laughs a lot. When I asked her for a photo of herself to appear vvith this article, she laughed and demurred. We compromised on pictures of vvorks from the Museum's collections that interest her. Anonymity could be an advantage, she implied. Perhaps so-and perhaps it's also an advantage to the rest of us to have a curator vvho represents herself by means of the art she believes in. All good curators do so continually in their vvork, of course, but it's nice symbol ism in this case. I first knevv Conkelton in our graduate-school days, vvhen she vva,, vvriLing a thesis on Minor White's early vvork. She then began a richly varied career vvorking vvith and on behalf of artists. Her exhibition projects have ranged vvidely, from historical to contemporary vvork.

I asked Conkelton about her curatorial ambitions and plans; she said, vvith a laugh, "I don't have any sound bites," but vvhen I pressed for a description of her role at MOMA, she pointed to a framed poster from the Museum's Photography Until Novv shovv, and said: "My role and the role of this department is photography from novv on. Szarkovvski vvas in the

right place at the right time to do something nevv and som thing that vvas needed. That vvas some combination of genius on his part, both being able to formulate vvhat he found and being able to find people to vvork vvith like Winogrand, Friedlander, and Arbus and so many others. I don't think the vvorld's the same kind of place -it just doesn't seem to vvork that vvay novv. But vve're in a great position here ... to do as great a thing as he did vvith the vvork of our ovvn generation. It vvill take a different form, though: it has to. The art itself takes a different form today. Critics of museums say they're mausoleums, about dead issues. But it doesn't have to be that vvay, and it certainly vvouldn't be interesting to me if it vvere. I love history, too, but it's really important to talk to somebody vvho's making the work now."

We talked about hovv her interests differ form those of her senior colleagues. The team is a comfortable one, she thinks, and the main difference betvveen herself and Galassi and Kismaric is that she didn't "grovv up in one institution" and thus has different perspectives than those fostered at MOMA. Conkelton is interested in conceptually based photography, not previously an important area at MOMA. She mentioned an essay by Joan Didion that described experiences similar to her ovvn: "When I first moved to L.A., I became suspicious

Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil, Untitled, c. 1950, Cyanotype, 58'/,x41 ". Gift of Carolyn Brown and Earle Brown. (Courtesy The Museum of Modern Art, New York City)

cl

Robert Heinecken, The S.S. Copyright Project "On Photograph," 1978, mosaic of black/white instant prints mounted on two panels, each 48x48". Purchased as the gift of Armand Photography. (Courtesy The Museum of Modern Art, New York City)

of the narrative and the sentimental, and I equated the two. I became much more interested in things that were about some sort of concept or revealed some way of framing an idea as opposed to framing a scene and giving telling detaiJs about what had been going on."

The main project Conkelton is working on at present is an Annette Messager exhibition to open in 1995. A small retrospective, it's intended to

Messager's work "the right thing at the right ti me," she praises its beautifu I visua I articulation of topical and political issues as well as of the relation of the individual to society, and of private imagery to public projections. Perhaps, Conkelton says, the most interesting thing is the way that the relationships between its fragments evoke how we see bodies today.

Major American museums now boast a considerable number of im-

show off the breadth of Messager's work to American audiences who, Conkelton feels, "only know the few pieces that have appeared in exhibitions" here so far. She speaks of the "tremendous visual impact" of Messager's pieces, which lure the viewer to an intimate viewing distance to decipher their fragments. Calling 16

pressive women in top curatorial posts in photography (as opposed, say, to old-master painting); Conkelton has joined a group that includes her colleague Susan Kismaric, Maria Morris Hambourg, Sarah Greenough, Anne Tucker and Sandra Phillips, among others. Many of her previous projects have dealt exclusively or inclusively

with the work of women photographers (and her upcoming small exhibition on Surrealism in America will include Helen Levitt and Berenice Abbott, for instance); her strength in this regard is a real asset to MOMA. The Messager show will help to fill a gap; the extraordinary blossoming of important work by women artists in the 1980s went largely unacknowledged by MOMA, while the Guggenheim showcased Jenny Holzer and the Whitney presented Cindy Sherman.

The Messager show will be interesting and challenging. Body issues certainly have been defined as central to our time, though some of us are more interested in the mind and will respond more to the conceptual aspects of the work than to the physicality of her swarming body parts staring back at the viewer. Museum time runs slowly, and it takes a while to feel a curator's impact. Conkelton's first show at MOMA, Multiple Images, included familiar pieces like Robert Heinecken's Susan Sontag montage and was an intelligent, and predictable, product of the museum's collections. It will be more interesting to see evidence of her influence in museum acquisitions. The recipient of an impressive Peter Norton Family Foundation grant for museum acquisitions, she'll make her presence felt in just this way. When we talked, she singled out a striking Robert Rauschenberg/ Susan Weil cyano-type acquired before her arrival as of particular interest to her, which suggests that her colleagues share some of the perspectives she brings to the museum. The MOMA seems to be stretching and growing in a healthy way at present, and this curatorial appointment may be one of the smartest acquisitions it's made in some time. When I asked Conkelton what she would save first if a fire broke out at the museum, she laughed again and firmly declined to answer. But even without hypothetical crises, time will show what she thinks and what matters most to her in photography. Continuity at MOMA? A new era? Wait and see.

ELLEN HANDY is a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A forthcoming publication includes Photography As Women's Work: Visions and Revisionism (an exhibition catalog for the Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York City). Handy has written reviews of more than one hundred exhibitions of contemporary painting, sculpture, and photography for Arts Magazine.

Berenice Abbott, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman, c. 1930, gelatin-silver print, 12 "/,.x1 O'/,". Acquired with Matching Funds provided by FrancesKeech in honor of Monroe Wheeler. (Courtesy The Museum of Modern Ari, New York City)

!J,//Hlallation,611vtf-nqi!!feHle1,

Dramatic changes have re-charted the boundaries of art history in the last decade. 1 The traditional objectives of art history-stylistic analysis in the service of connoisseurship, and iconography, the recovery of the textual or cultural sources of an image-are now themselves the subject of critical investigation. The "new," or "revisionist," art history employs, among other strategies, the interdisciplinary reading of images as cultural artifacts "coded" by the ideological space of the museum, the publications that document and interpret them, and the methodological paradigms that have governed other readings in the past. Thus the "fathers" of art history, from Wofflin and Panofsky to H.W. Janson, have been at the center of the debate that has thrust the onceself-contained pseudoscience into a critical space where questions asked about a work of art have less to do with who made it, when, and why than with both the social context and the aftermath of its creation.

Contemporary artists have played a key role in this debate, offering trenchant theoretical statements on the "systems" acting upon artworks or intervening actively within the "social frames" surrounding them. In the 1980s, art about representation and the systems and frames surrounding art production became the central focus of Sherrie Levine, Louise Lawler, Barbara Kruger, Haim Steinbach, Hans Haacke, and others. These artists disclosed the value systems underlying definitions of "art," "artist," "exhibition," "museum," and "viewer" and profoundly impacted how art has been made, exhibited, and interpreted since. Their new language of art and about art demanded that the artist relinquish "universal" values, seek fresh strategies for using issues of representation to disrupt the viewing experience, and bring the audience into the critical arena. This, in combination with their frequent appropriation of mass-media images and communication systems, gave rise to an aesthetic concerned not with what art means but how it means. The use of reproductions manipulated "masterpieces" from the art-historical canon were intended to encourage active questioning rather than passive delectation of "icons" of art history which had been taken for granted.

The role of feminism in this reshuffling of the art-historical deck cannot be underestimated. The publication of Linda Nochlin 's article "Why Are There No Great Women Artists?" in 1971 announced the advent of feminist art history. Nochlin's contribution was not to merely amend the "canon" but toquestion the ideological suppositions behind it. "Art," wrote Nochlin, " ... occurs in a social situation, is an integral element of social structure,

and is mediated and determined by specific and de-. finable social institutions, be they art academies, systems of patronage, mythologies of the divine creator and artist as heman or social outcast." 2 '

Twenty years later the "new" art history is indebted to the contributions of Nochlin and her feminist colleagues for opening Pandora's Box, unleashing a furor of questions that not only sought to amend the history of art with what had been left out but also to ask how such omissions were made in the first place. Recent feminist art history has focused on the examination of representations of women and the language and method-

Left image - detail of hand from Poussin's Rapeof the SabineWomen ; center

detail of Rubens' Rapeof the DaughtersofLeucippus; right image - detail of hand from Poussin's Rapeof the Sabine Women; open books read: left - "The act of love by which (they) uplift the mortal maidens from the ground draws the spectator upward in a mood of rapture ... "; center -"(T)he very landscape heaves and flows in response to the excitement of the event:"; right ~"The low horizon increases the effect of a heavenly ascension, natural enough since this picture ... constitutes a triumph of divine love ... "

Quotes are from a description of RapeoftheDaughtersofLeucippusfrom Frederick Ham's 1989 revised edition of An: A Historyof Painting, Sculpture,Architecture.

ological frameworks used to analyze them. Thus Margaret D. Carroll, for example, concluded in her discussion of Rubens' "Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus" that "any interpretation of the painting is inadequate that does not attempt to come to terms with it as a celebratory depiction of sexual violence and of the forcible subjugation of women by men." 3

The language used to describe/inscribe the Rubens, as well as Poussin's "Rape of the Sabine Women," in such "classic" texts as H.W. Janson's Hi.1tory ofArt and Frederick Hartt's Art:A HutoryofPainting,Sculpture,Architecture, is the subject of Ann Fessler's installation "Art History Lesson" (Center for Photography at Woodstock, September-November, 1993). The project is Fessler's most recent addition to over fifteen years of photomontages, films, artist's books, and installations which have explored the interstices between language and images, confronting "the dialectic of word and image a constant in the fabric of signs that a culture weaves around itself," and how our visual experiences are "in fact mediated by one sort of 'report' or another, from the things we are taught to see in and say about pictures, the labels we learn to apply and manipulate. "4

When she was an undergraduate, Fessler remembers listening to her professors discussing canonical images from

Art

installation, Ann

1993, (detail of installation from Rubens' RapeoftheDaughtersofLeucippus).Quote in book under framed piece reads: "The female types are traversed by a steady stream of energy ... ". This quote was taken from a description of RapeoftheDaughtersofLeucippusfrom Frederick Ham's 1989 revised edition of Art: A History of Painting. Sculpture Architecture.

Art HistoryLesson,Ann Fessler, 1993, photo linen, altered books, furniture (detail view of installation ar the Center for Photography in Woodscock).

Note:

image

HistoryLesson

Fessler,

the history of art, particularly images depicting extreme violence, in the detached language of stylistic analysis and art-historical typology. "Most of my work," according to Fessler, "comes out of anger about how art has been spoken about." 5 As· a frustrated fine-arts major (1967-1972), Fessler recalls that it was "impossible to have content in my work. Most of my teachers came out of abstract expressionism, and they only spoke the language of Clement Greenberg's formalism. Their idea of feedback on our work was 'lts's working ... it's not working.' This bore no resemblance to my experience of the world." Fessler, frustrated by this rarefied modernist discourse, gravitated towards courses in Multi Media taught by Art Education Professor Tom Linehan, where images were being engaged critically. There her interest in photography and film developed when she realized that "this was the only place where there was any willingness to talk about what was in the picture."To Fessler, media was the perfect vehicle for creating narrative-based art with content dealing directly in issues that were relevant to her.

Subsequent degrees in photography and media studies had a profound effect on her thinking about issues of representation. In particular, her study of media provided generous opportunity for critical thinking about the impact of images on cultural belief systems and social behavior. "It was then that I realized that images have tremendous power to influence us."

This became the theme of the "American Dream Series." The series combined background scenes of the American landscape photographed by Fessler and filled with fictitious groups of figures snipped from old Life Magazines. Innocuous titles such as "Living to Please Husband and Children" and "Growing Up to Be Like Mommy," ironically described these simply constructed montages. A Winnebago, for example, became the backdrop for a smiling husband watching his wife do the impossible: baking a cake on an outdoor range. The series had particular poignancy for Fessler, for it was her first attempt to reconcile her personal history and her public politics in her work. These are the images she associated with her childhood growing up on a small farm in middle America, the images from magazines, television, and Sears catalogues which reinforced the stereotypical gender roles from which she always felt alienated.

Beginning in 1981, Fessler grew increasingly interested in creating a didactic art that might affect individual behavior. A series of books designed to parody the famous Dick and Jane readers popularized in the 1950s and 1960s proved the ready solution. Printed in multiples, these artist books were designed to be distributed cheaply and be digested quickly and easily. The series traced real-life stories of people Fessler knew, and illustrated how the prefabricated social reality constructed by 18

An HistoryLesson, Ann Fessler, 1993, (detail of installation).

Note:

Left image, detail from Poussin's RapeoftheSabine Women; Right image, detail from Rubens' Rape oftheDaughtersof Leucippus;books with altered spines from the Index Series,top label reads: AlphabeticalIndex - Descriptions ofRape Painrings from the History of Arr.

An HistoryLesson, Ann Fessler, 1993, (detail of installation) Index Series,books with altered spines. Top label reads: Alphabe,icalIndexDescriptionsofRape Paintings fromthe Historyof An, bottom labels from alphabetical index spell out NOBLE, NATURAL.

An HistoryLesson, Ann Fessler, 1993, (detail of installation.

LivingtoPleaseHusband and Children,© Ann Fessler1979, (from the AmericanDreamSeries, original in color, 8xl0").

Cover, Arr Hiscory Lesson, copyright, Ann Fessler, 1991, book published in cooperation with rhe National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, casebound, offset.

Note:

The cover of ArtHisroryLessonresembles the well known college art history survey textbook H. W. Janson's HisroryofArt. Details from Poussin's painting Rapeofthe SabineWomen are juxtaposed with a quote from Jansen's text which describes the painting as follows: "The highest aim of painting, he believed, is to represent noble and serious human actions. These must be shown in a logical and orderly way - not as they really happened, but as they would have happened if nature were perfect."

Art HisroryLesson, copyright, Ann Fessler 1991, book published in cooperation with the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Openpages.

mass m_edia caused them anxiety about selfhood. The book form enabled Fessler to detail complex situations and distill them through simple, familiar images and spare, straightforward texts. As Fessler viewed it, this distillation process was just like teaching. Through her bookmaking, she further developed her commitment to creating accessible art as a type of didactic tool that explicitly addresses contemporary social issues.

In 1984 she was commissioned to create her first installation for "History as Content," an exhibition at the Washington Project for the Arts. The project "RAPE: A Crime Report" involved six months of extensive research, including interviews with rape victims and administrators at crisis centers, and reading hundreds of case studies and interviews with convicted rapists. Her research experience was reduced to ten or eleven sentences balanced between two characters, He and She. Distributed over two rooms, a bedroom and a living room, cyanotype sentences on white cotton organdy were printed with narratives. Blurring the distinction between fact and fiction, they evoked a sense of how the events leading up to and including rape unfold. "She was more afraid for her children in the next room." "He wanted to kiss her too." "She burned the sheets." "He also knew what it was to be vulnerable."

The installation considered both the psychological profile of the rapist and the stigma allacheJ to the rape victim by the public. These were delineated in statements continuously running across a television screen in the living room, featuring facts and myths about rape. When the piece evolved for a touring exhibition about rape two years later, these facts and myths were localized according to the statistics available in the host community. 6

During her research for "Rape: A Crime Report," Fessler went to H.W. Janson's HutoryofArt to study how other artists had represented rape. Casually thumbing through an edition of Janson 's Hi.1toryofArt, she found no shortage of images of rapes and abductions. From Gianbologna to Rubens to Poussin to Delacroix to Picasso, the subject, taken from classical mythology, ancient history, and literature, has been a constant theme throughout the annals of Western art. Fessler was disturbed by the disparity between the language Janson used to describe these images and the scenes they depicted. Art historians found it possible to look closely at Poussin's technique in the "Rape of the Sabine Women" and still manage to look through the content of the painting as though it were transparent. The result was an ahistorical reading that celebrated the male art historian's voyeurism without mention of the violence being perpetrated upon the female figures.

Returning to the book form once again, Fessler encased her reading of the Poussin in the steel-gray linen covers of Jansen's origi-

nal, with its familiar typeface and gold embossing. ArtHutoryLeJJon appropriated Janson's own words, juxtaposed with details of Poussin's painting. 7 Fessler avoided using the full image of the Poussin. Instead she carefully cropped and provocatively selected details that highlighted the emotions of the female figures, while the text seemed to deny the violence. The effect on the reader is to make him or her assume that a mistake has been made, that the visual illustrations were intended for some other book and had been misplaced in a publication on aesthetic philosophy.

Fessler continued her series for /J'/J. in "Ancient History/Recent History: An Ongoing Examination of Art History Survey Texts." 8 This time she took as her subject Frederick Hartt's Art:AHi.JtoryofPai11ti11g,Sculpture,and Architecture, and his discussion of Rubens's "Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus." Fessler again used details of the painting, this time choosing closeups of the physical and psychological confrontation between the abductors and their victims. Drawing attention to the

installation

cloth pieces with text. Original installation at the Washington Project for the Arts in 1984 included two rooms with furniture. As part of traveling exhibition organized by Ohio State University in 1985, the furniture was removed but additional text was projected. This reproduction is from the installation at Ohio State. University.

ways images of rape in the history of art are eroticized by male scholars, Fessler challenges the assumption that the intended audience for these images is exclusively male. The i'/1/J.insert raised the emotional pitch of Fessler's work and subsequently made an urgent appeal to readers to consider texts critically and reflect on their own biases and assumptions. 9

Fessler's "Art History Lesson: An Installation" is her first effort to extend the series into three dimensions, a kind of Janson in "sensorround." Fessler opened the installation with a tattered rococo lady's chair presented on a plinth. With its painted scene of courtly love and torn cover with a tassel tossed over the seat, the chair appeared itself to have been vio-

lated and le~ in an irreparable state. It is a compelling coincidence that Fessler intuitively struck a historical chord by including this artifact, for, in her article on the Rubens "Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus," Margaret Carroll has discussed the seventeenth-century convention of rape and abduction as a socially acceptable foreplay to love, as, in fact, an essential aspect of the courtship rituals of the time.

Fessler soon shattered the illusions promised by the courtship ritual and the intentions of art history. Here, in a scarlet chamber resembling a Victorian salon-style gallery, the gilt-framed details from both the Rubens and the Poussin paintings were printed on photo linen canvas, stained with oils and enlarged to near scale. The texts, printed on single pages in bound books, rest on pedestals beneath them. Viewers were placed in the same proximity to the details that they would be if they were looking at the whole painting. As a result, unlike in the actual "text book" the violence dominated the excerpted art historical texts and the viewer was forced to confront the content of the paintings.

Sets of books resembling encyclopedias were labelled AlphabeticaL/-INDEX-1DeJcriptio11Jof/RAPEPAINTINGS/fromtheHi.JtoryofArt, their spines spelling the words "N-0-B-L-E," "N-AT-U-R-A-L," and "H-E-AV-E-N-L-Y," referring to the rhetoric of Professors Janson and Hartt, whose own descriptions suggest that acts of rape are somehow sanctified or made romantic by their rendering in such "masterpieces." By extension Fessler also suggested that by using such language to describe it, traditional art history has inadvertently sanctioned rape.

Fessler has stated that her objective is to "actively engage [audiences] in the practice of re-reading authoritative texts and images, and to re-examine all history through art history," to return our sense of horror which is all too frequently anaesthetized by mass media images and the biased texts which accompany them. To that end, Fessler plans to continue putting art history on exhibit, in order to "make audiences aware of the assumptions implicit not only in writing about art and other histories but in the display or re-presentation of those histories." Projects currently in progress follow the "museumist" genre, placing her "canvases" and their associated texts in simulated gallery spaces where the "old masters" are typically seen or in actual museum environments among permanent collections. Her work follows the feminist tradition of challenging the ideological agendas behind the structure of

culture, the system that, as artist Mary Kelly has observed, "Marks a crucial intersection of discourses, practices, and sites which define the institutions of art within a definite social formation [It] is exactly here, within this inter-textual, inter-discursive network, that the work of art is produced as text. "10

JVote-0

l. The author wishes to extend her thanks to Michele Moure for providing invaluable insights regarding Ann Fessler's work and to the artist for her cooperation in the preparation of this manuscript.

2. Quoted in Thalia Gouma-Peterson and Patricia Mathews, "The Feminist Critique of Art History,"Art Bui/din,September 1987, p. 326. See Linda Nochlin, "\Vhy Are there No Great \Vomen Artists?" 111/ommi11SexldtSociety.StudU.,1i1 PouwandPou•er/u,111e.,.,, ed. Vivian Gornick and Barbara Moran, New York, 1971,pp. 480-510; reprinted in a special issueof Art11ew,1,January, 1971,as "Why Have There been No Great Women Artists?" and in Art and SexualPoltlicd, ed. Thomas B. Hess, Elizabe1h C. Baker, cw York, London, 1971.

3. ·'The Ero1icsof Absolutism: Rubens and 1heJ\l\ys1ifica1ionof Sexual Violence,·· Repre,1e11tatio,1J 25 (Winier 1989):3-29. Reprinted in The E-,,:pa,uJin.qD,dcource:Femimdmand Art f!{.,/ary, Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, eds., New York: icon Editions, pp. 139-159.

4. See \V.J.T. J\'\itchell. "Image and \Vord" and "Mute Poesy and Blind Painting," reprinted in Art and the"ry /900-1990,Charles Harrison and Paul \Vood, eds., Cambridge: Blackwell Publisher, 1993, pp. 1106-1111.

5. All quotes are taken from a series of interviews with Ann Fessler conducted by the author between September and Novem• ber, 1993.

6. See the exhibition catalogue for Rape,Ohio State University, Hoyt Sherman Gallery, Columbus. Ohio, 1985. The group exhibition featured work by other artists who have addressed issues related to rape, including among them Ida Applebroog, Nancy Spero, and Ana Mendieta.

7. The excerpt from Janson chosen by Fessler was as follows: "The highest aim of painting, he believed, is to represent noble and serious human actions. These must be shown in a logical and orderly way-not as they really happened, but as they would have happened if nature were perfect."

Fessler's first edition of this project was for AmeriCanArt (the journal of the Na1ional Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution), Fall, 1991.inserted between pp. 54-55. The project was later developed into a self.contained book, also published in cooperation with the National Museum of American Art.

8. See1I!,. vol. Ill. no. 5, March/April 1993,pp. 46--51.

9. Ibid, p. 46. Hartt's description of the Rubens painting was as follows: "His 'Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus· recalls forcibly Titian's 'Rape of Europa' The act of love by which Castor and Pollux, sons of Jupiter, uplift the mortal maidens from the ground draws the spectator upward in a mood of rapture .... The female types arc traversed by a steady stream of energy The low horizon increases the effect of heavenly ascension, natural enough since this picture ... constitutes a triumph of divine love; the very landscape heaves and 0ows in response to the excitement of the event."

I 0. J\'\ary Kelly," Re-Viewing Modernist Criticism," St:rem,vol. 22, no. 3, London, Autumn 1981.pp. 41-62. Reprinted in Ari and Th,ory1900-/990, p. I 093.

Reproduction rights for the Rubens painting RapeoftheDaughtersof LeucippuscourtesySCALA/Art Resource,NY. Poussin'sRapeofthe SabineWomencourtesyThe MetropolitanMuseumof Art, NY. Quotes describingthe paintingsused in installationare from:H.W. Janson, Hiswryof Art. (New York:Prentice-Hall, 1968), pg 440 (Fessler'scopy of her college textbook).

!IJ;,,;r,'fi'mu;,, is the Curator/Educator at The Contemporary, a museum programming in temporary spaces in Baltimore, Maryland. After receiving a Simpson Fellowship for study at the University College, London, she completed graduate work in Art History, Theory and Criticism at SUNY Stony Brook. She recently edited Jlfi11i11_9thei/ll11Jewn:AulnJtaL!atumbyFredWi!.1011, a book documenting the project by Fred Wilson that she organized with The Contemporary at the Maryland Historical Society (The New Press, I 994). She is a frequent lecturer on contemporary art, museum education, and critical museology.

Ann Fessler, Rape:A CrimeRepon, 1984, detail of installation, cyanocype on cotton organdy,

included eleven

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INDEX OF CENTER QUARTERLY BACK ISSUES: 1991 - 1993

1991

47. / THE CAMERA (NEVER) LIES

TheTruthofFiction- Robert Blake; ResplendentRites:WillieAnneWright's"CivilWarRedox" - Carol Rand-Hudson; LiesandLanguage,Photographs andFictions:AnneTurynonHerWork - Ellen Handy; TellingLies:Danny Tisdale / Anne Arden McDonald / Aida Laleian - The Editors; Cover: John Baldessari. •

48. / STEALING FROM THE PAST

Contemporary artists re-investigate "old photographs" with a time-frame ~f the last fifty years. Photography includes cultural messages thatover time-in the hands of contemporary photographers change meaning. InherentVice:OldPhotos- Robert Mahoney. Artists: Elaine Reichek, Kathy Grove, Dennis Farber, Bill Albertini, Ted Serios, and Melissa Wolf; Photography'sHistory/History'sPhotography:SomeArtTodayandIts Sources- Ellen Handy. Artists: Mike & Doug Starn, Elaine Reichek, Ellen Garvens, Michael Joseph; FamilyPhotographs- Lois E. Nesbitt. Artists: Christen Boltanski, Larry Sultan, Tina Barney, Adam Simon, and Thomas Sttuth. Cover: Cathy Grove.

49. I THE SURROGATE FIGURE: INTERCEPTED IDENTITIES IN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY/ Julia Ballerina, guest editor "More and more, recent photography deliberately subverts the medium's direct contact with a living, animate, human figure by obstructing it or by substituting a figure that is clearly inanimate, thus creating a surrogate portrait. This work resists conventional notions of identity, presentations of self, and photographic forms of identification." -JB TheSurrogateFigure- Julia Ballerina; artists' statements and pictures by six participating visual artists: Bill Barrette, Lorna Bieber, Darrel Ellis, Richard Ross, Laurie Simmons, and Susan Wides. Other illustrations by artists such as Sherrie Levine, Andy Warhol, Lorna Simpson, Barbara Kruger, Ellen Carey, Joel-Peter Witkin, Orshi Drozdik, David Levinthal, and William Wegman. Cover: Susan Wides.

SO. / IT'S ALL RELATIVE

In 1955, when Edward Steichen created the landmark TheFamilyofMan exhibition and publication for the Museum of Modem Art in New York City, a picture emerged of "The People" - connected and alike -an international celebration. Over thirty-five years later, we wondered: Who is the family in the 1990s and what does humanity look like now? To assemble a current collection, we asked Larry Fink to select work by photographers who utilize photography as a tool in a complex critique."-KK NewRelations:TheFamilyofManRevisited - Larry Fink. Artists: Roy Arenella, Martin Benjamin, Bruce Bennett, Tony Culver, Sheila Farrell, Tanya Marcuse, Andrea Modica, Louie Palu, Ann Redlich, and others. HealingtheCulturalBody:ClarissaSligh'sUnfinishedBusiness - Laura U. Marks; Portfolio/"Sisters"-Susan Unterberg. Cover: Tony Culver.

1992

51. / INTERNATIONAL ISSUES/ Ellen Levy, guest editor

Important international cultural activities expose greater numbers of Americans to international influences. TheEncyclopedicImpulseby Ellen K. Levy; Artists: Bernd & Hilla Becker, Candida Hofer, Evelyn Hofer, Wilhelm Schurman, Peter Seidel, Andre Villers. PhotographyandVideoatthe LudwigMuseuminCologneby Gisela Hossmann; ArtifactsasArchitecture:PhotographyofAnotherSpaceby Ingrid Severin; PhotographyfromUnified Berlin- Hilke Nissen; Paris:TheGhostofHippolyleBayardis StillAmongUsby Valerie Morlot; OpportunityKnocks- Kathleen Kenyon; NotedBooks -Eve Chanin. Cover: Brigit Kleber. •

52. / THE ART OF COLLECTING StreetSmartsforCommencingaPhotographCollection- Robert Persky; How(andWhy)toBuyPhotographsatAuction - Penelope Dixon; OnCollecting Photographs- AGlossan;ofTermsonCollectingPhotography(courtesy AIPAD); auction lots. Cover: Bruce Davidson.

53. / ENCOUNTERING

DIFFERENCE/ Elizabeth Ferrer, guest editor Highlighting the FourMexicanPhotographersexhibition with: Graciela Iturbide, Pablo Ortiz Monasterio, Carlos Somonte, Mariana Yampolsky portfolios and artists' statements, Curator's essay by Elizabeth Ferrer; Multi-culturalism:ADilemmaofEquality Geno Rodriquez; Re-Evolution: fromthesurfaceofallthingstotheinfinitespiritofcreatorsby video Curator Adolfo Patino (video stills by Luis Carlos Gomez). Artists: Laura Anderson, Domenico Capello, Juan Carlos Equihua & Ana Patricia Huerta, Luis Carlos Gomez, Roberto Escobar, Elias Nahmias, Carlos Salom; SubversiveTouristsandOutsiderVoyagesfilmessayby John Pruitt. (Film stills by Satyajit Ray and Yvonne Rainer) Filmmakers: Luis Bufiel, Peter Kubeika, Yvonne Rainer, Satyajit Ray; Cover: Graciela Iturbide.

54. / HOW WE SEE PhotographyNow, Artists' Portfolios by: Marion Belanger, Alison Burnett, Greg Erf, Sheva Fruiumn, Pedro Cote Baraibar, Patricia McDonough, Lynn Saville, Roger Stevens, Laurie Hirsch-Tennent, Vivian Selbo, Clay Babcock, Laurie Costa, Tai Loe Huyuh, Mark C. Harvey, Linda Ingraham, Caroline Keith, Kathleen King, Maria Matthews, Pasha Rafat, Victoria Scott, Susan locks Bryant, Barbara Ames, Brennan Cavanaugh, Jocelyn Lee, Darrell Matsumoto, Ann McAllister, Lindsay Morris, Anthony Scibelli, Julie Townsend, Tom Young. MIRROR / MIRROR, portfolios and statements by: Gwen Akin & Allan Ludwig, Anne Barnard, Barbara Ess, Karen Filter, Karmen Polydorou, Liliana Porter, Todd Watts, Kathleen Kenyon; TheManWhoLovedWomen:MartinMunkacsi, Joan Munkacsi; OpportunitiesforArtists-Derek Johnston. Cover: Maria Matthews.

1993

SS. / SOCIAL STUDIES / PUBLIC MONUMENTS / Sarah M. Lowe & Virginia Rutledge, guest editors ParitalDocuments;ContemporaryPhotographyontheStreet by VirginiaRutledge;SocialStudies/PublicMonuments,Artists'Profiles-Sarah M. Lowe. Artists: Peter McClennan, Kent Rush, Dara Silverman, E.E. Smityh, Hanneke Van Velzen, and Christian Walker; GenderPowerDisplay-Diane Neumaier portfolio; BeyondtheFrame:AnInterviewwithMarthaRos/er-Therese Lichtenstein. Cover: Hanneke Van Velzen.

56. / THE JOY OF COLLECTING Autumn,Apples,andanAuctionin Woodstock-Cheryl Finley; Questions & Answers(courtesyAIPAD);TheCoolHardFacts:Contemporan;Photography(aninterviewwithPeterMacGill by Kathleen Kenyon). Artists: Mark Klett, Joel Sternfeld; Why is EveryoneTalkingAboutSallyMann's Photographs?-Ellen Handy; Auction lots. Cover: Jose Picayo.

THE PERMANENTPRINT COLLECTION

The Center's Permanent Print Collection consists of over six hundred photographs. This December, with generous funding from The Douglas C. James Charitable Trust, we were able to completely renovate the Collections Room.

With strong holdings in contemporary work donated by visual artists of exceptional talent, the Collection contains photographs by: Charles Gatewood, Christopher James, Wendy Holmes, Kenro lzu, Lilo Raymond, Stephen Shore, Nina Kuo, Albert Chong, Larry Fink, Phyllis Galembo, Craig Stevens, Nathan Farb, Lucinda Devlin, Arezoo Moseni, Antonin Kratochivil, and Mariana Yampolsky, among others.

An exhibition, Selections from the Collection, is available for travel. Selections have been shown regionally at: Beacon House Day Treatment Center (Kingston, New York), Poughkeepsie Arts Council Festival (Poughkeepsie, New York), The Center for Accessible Living (Kingston, New York), and Fleet Banks (of Woodstock, Kingston, and Saugerties, New York). Exhibitions curated from the Collection have been shown at Vassar College Gallery at Poughkeepsie, New York, and the State University Gallery at New Paltz, New York. In February-March of 1994, the Center Gallery features a group show from the Collection.

The Collection serves as a study resource for artists, teachers, students, and curators, as it contains photographs of excellence and diversity in technique, style, and content. Consisting of gelatin silver photographs, color, including 20x24" Polaroid, Cibachrome, Ektacolor, hand colored, cyanotypes, gum prints, Fresson prints, and collage, the subject matter covers landscape, figure, portrait, still-life, as well as abstractions. Images are in the form of single pictures, multiples, series, and-or three dimensional works. Approaches include those of the fine artist, the photojournalist, the fashion photographer, and the commercial photographer. The Permanent Print Collection is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 5 pm, by appointment with Associate Director Kathleen Kenyon.

Additions to Collection:

Vincent Serbin, Negative Collage No. 1, 1992; Gaye Chan, Angel on Folding Chair, 1993; Eric Lindbloom, Pacem in Terris, Warwik, NY 1992, 1992; Debra Goldman, Establishing Open Season, 1991; Tai Loe Huyuh, School Girl, 1992; Lynn Saville, Rockefeller Center, 1992; Jocelyn Lee, Untitled, 1993; Jocelyn Lee, Untitled, 1991; Charles Purvis, Untitled, 1993; Darrell Matsumoto, Instruments and Devices, 1991

NOTED BOOKS

TheCenter'slibraryis open,free,tothepublicfromnoonto 5 pm.Wednesday throughSunday.Wehaveover1,500books,aswell as twenty-fivemagazines andnewsletters.Recentdonationsare listedbelow.

NIKOLAVUCO.TextbyMilankaTodic,published1930byRecontreslntemationales de la Photographic,D'Arles,France.POR.

PHOTOSOURCE.AuthorsWill Rhyinsand DorothyMcNeil!,published1990by ProfessionalPhotoSource,Inc.,availablefrom ProfessionalPhotoSource,Inc., 568 Broadway,Suite605A,NewYork,NY10012,publishedon an annualbasis, $12.95/softcover.

HOMELESS:Portraitsof Americansin HardTimes.Textand Photographyby HowardSchatz,forewordbyOwenEdwards,afterwordbyMarilynWinkleby,Ph.D., published1993byChronicleBooks,SanFrancisco,availablefromChronicleBooks, 275 FifthStreet,SanFrancisco,CA94103,for $22.95/softcover.

ERICRONDEPIERRE:Photographsby EricRondepierre.Textby DenysRiout and PhilippeDubois,ShowCatalogueat EspaceJulesVerne,Centred'Art et de Culture/Bretigny-sur-Orge,GalerieMicheleChomette,Paris.POR.

IMAGESOFAPPALACHIANCOALFIELDS:Photographsby BuilderLevy.Editor DouglasHarper,introductionbyHelenMatthewsLewis,forewordbyCornellCapa, publishedbyTempleUniversityPress,Philadelphia,1989,availablefrom Temple UniversityPressNews,Broadand OxfordStreets,Philadelphia,PA,19122,for $24.95/cloth.

ITERATIONS:TheNewImageshowcatalogue.ExhibitionorganizedbyTheInternationalCenterof Photography,NYC,1133Avenueof the Americas,NYC10036, October15, 1993to February6, 1994,curatedbyTimothyDruckreyandCharles Stainback.POR.

THEREIS A WORLDTHROUGHOUREYES:PerceptionsandVisionsoftheAfricanAmericanPhotographer.ShowCatalogue,exhibitionsponsoredbythe AfricanAmericanHistoryMonthCommitteeof RocklandCommunityCollege,January 15to March15, 1993.POR.

THEARTOFTHEAUTOCHROME:TheBirthof ColorPhotography.AuthorJohn Wood,forewordbyMerryA. Foresta,published1993byUniversityof IowaPress, availablefrom Universityof IowaPress,IowaCity,IA 52242,for $65.00/hardcover.

THEPERMANENCEANDCAREOFCOLORPHOTOGRAPHS:TraditionalandDigital ColorPrints,ColorNegatives,Slides,andMotionPictures.AuthorHenryWilhelm, contributingauthorCarolBrower,published1993 by PreservationPublishing Company,availablefrom PreservationPublishingCompany,Grinnell,IA. POR.

TRANSITORYGARDENS,UPROOTEDLIVESAuthorsDianaBalmoriandMargaret Morton,published1993byYaleUniversityPress,availablefrom YaleUniversity Press,NewHaven,CT.POR.

GUIDETO PHOTOGRAPHY (A CompleteGuideto CurrentPhotographicFIWB). AuthorMichaelFreeman,editorJudyMartin,published1993byAmphoto,availablefrom Amphoto,1515Broadway,NYC10036,for $22.50/softcover.

THEAMPHOTOBOOKOFFILM(ACompleteGuideto CurrentPhotographicFilms). AuthorGeorgeSchaub,published1993byWatson-GuptillPublications,Inc.,availablefrom Amphoto,1515Broadway,NYC10036,for $16.95/softcover.

FIRSTPHOTOS:HowKidsCanTakeGreatPicturesAuthorArt Evans.Published 1992by PhotoDataResearch,availablefrom PhotoDataResearch,800-8S. Pacific Coast,RedondoBeach,CA90277,for $9.95/softcover.

EVERY17 SECONDS/AGlobalRetrospectiveonthe AIDSCrisis,Photographs andtextbyBrianWeil. IntroductionbySimonWatney,published1992byAperture Foundation,Inc.,availablefrom ApertureFoundation,20 East23rd Street, NewYork,NY,for $24.95/softcover.

EDITOR DEREKJOHNSTON

Executive Director, Colleen Kenyon, Collections Room, 1994

WOODSTOCK WORKSHOPS

June - October photographyandtravel

WORKSHOPS have been offered by the Center for Photography at Woodstock since 1979, attracting master photographers who create and share images with workshop participants, provide "handson" work, problem solving, and professional development portfolio reviews.

Topics range from contemporary approaches to the portrait, the nude, the landscape, the still life, documentary practice, photographic ethics, criticism, electronic imaging, and fine and alternative printmaking techniques.

Workshops in Woodstock are held on location in the beautiful Catskill countryside or at the Center's artistic home. The workshops are an unique opportunity to meet and work with renowned photographers in an informal and nourishing environment. Internships and scholarships are available. Call 914-679-9957 or Fax 914-679-6337 for catalogue.

WOODSTOCK is an historic art colony, established in the 1890s, ideally situated at the edge of the Hudson River Valley along the base of the great eastern escarpment of the Catskill Mountains. Spectacular roads and foot trails lead north and west farther into the Catskill Park and Forest Preserve, filled with beautiful forests rocky streams, and impressive mountain views. To the south and east are pastoral views, quaint country towns, the Hudson River Valley and its historic villages. Woodstock has excellent shopping and dining, theatres, innumerable galleries, and a relaxed, festive atmosphere.

THE CENTER since its inception in 1977, has supported creative photography of all kinds. Its mission is to provide an artistic home for contemporary photographers with programs in education, exhibition, publication, lectures and services that create access to professional workspace, nourishing responses, and new audiences.

We extend our thanks to the Eastman Kodak Company Professional Imaging Division, JOBO, !!ford Photo Inc., Lowe! Light Manufacturing Inc., Luminos, Brewer Cantelmo, Olympus Corporation, Polaroid Corporation, Reis Tripods, and University Products, for their support of the Woodstock Photography Workshops.

Woodstock Photography Workshops 1994 Schedule

David Michael Kennedy:Platinum/Palladium One-on-One,a week of your choice June -Oct.

Thomas Carabasi:Italian Journey May 26 - June 13

Alex Web:Personal Photojournalism

Colleen & KathleenKenyon:Getting Shown, Being Known

Colleen & Kathleen Kenyon:Hand Coloring & Photo Collage

Lilo Raymond:Garden Views,Still Life & Portaits

Ann Lovett:Introduction to Digital Imaging

June4&5

June 11& 12

June 18 & 19

June 25 & 26

July 8 -10

Julie Saul/ Julie Saul Gallery,NYC:Gallery Portfolio Review July 17

LaurieKratochivil& CarolFlufy:Magazine Editing & Photo Reps

George Holz: The Nude/ A Personal & CommercialApproach

John Placko,ILFORDCorporation:Black& White Printing

July 23 & 24

July 30 & 31

August6& 7

F.P.G.Stock Agency:Today's Creative Renaissancein Stock Photography August 13 & 14

Eikoh Hosoe:Photographing the Nude August 20 & 21

Angelo Lomeo& Sonja Bullaty:Beauty & the Landscape August 20 & 21

Keith Carter:Rolling and Tumbling:Capturing the Unseen August 27 & 28

MarkArbeit:Fashion Photography Sept. 3 & 4

Panel moderatedby CherylFinley:NYC Collecting Symposium Sept. 8

Jed Devine: Platinum/Palladium Photo Printmaking Sept. 10 & 11

PatrickNagatani:The NYC 20x24Polaroid Studio Sept. 12 & 13

LawrenceP. Lewis:Photographing People/ The Portrait Sept. 17 & 18

Sally Gall:Figure in the Landscape Sept. 24 & 25

David Scheinbaum& JanetRussek:The New MexicanLandscape Oct. 13-16

George Holz, MyWhat © 1992

Sally Gall, ColumnD'or © 1980

February5 - 27

Reception:February26,3 - 5pm

ContemporaryimageryculledfromtheCenter's PermanentPrintCollection.

SELECTIONS FROM THE COLLECTION

Includingworksby: ShelbyleeAdams,Judith Black,AlbertChong,BobbieCrosby,Will Faller, DeborahGoldman,Kenrolzu,JocelynLee,Eric Lindbloom,NancyMacNamara,DanMcCormack, AndreaModica,andJohnWillis.

DerekJohnston& LawrenceP.Lewis,staffcurators

CYNDY WARWICK/ SOLO

Thesubjectistelevision;weseethehuman dilemmasofthetalkshows.

March5 - April 17

Reception:March5,3 - 5pm

THE MODERN WORLDIS IT PHOTOGENIC?

Alookatinnovativeinternationalimagescurated bySarahMorthland.

PAUL YU-YANG/ SOLO: AnAsianAmericanartist,wholivesin San Francisco,Yu-Yangconstructshisworkusing photography,toners,paint,andwriffenstories.

April 30 - June12

Reception:April30,3 - 5pm

BRIAN WEIL: THE AIDS PHOTOGRAPHS

A touringshoworiginatedbyPhotographers+FriendsCCI AgainstAIDS,Weil'sphotographscapturethediversefacetsoftheworldwideAIDSepidemic.(Special ::c FundingcourtesyNEAMuseums/.

JESSICA GUDNASON / SOLO

BorninMalaysia,nowlivinginManhaffan,Gudnason"<1" createsCOMPOSITIONS,platinum/palladiumand o-Ektacolarprints.Simpleyetmysteriousimagesbased a-on geometry,herworkcallsforquietcontemplation.

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© Cyndy Warwick {detail) "Talk live" from IV Babies series, 1990- 1993 {original color Polaroid)