31/03/98

Portraits of 110 Gay and Lesbian Writers Photographs from Robert Giard' s Particular Voices on View at The New York Public Library

Since the mid-1980s, photographer Robert Giard has traveled the United States photographing contemporary American gay and lesbian literary figures for his ongoing portrait series, Particular Voices. Beginning April 18, The New York Public Library - the largest institutional collector of Mr. Giard's photographs - will exhibit 110 portraits from this series in "Particular Voices": Robert Giard's Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers. The Library holds more than 150 of Giard's exquisite black-and-white prints in its Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs.
The exhibition also features pioneering published works and selected manuscript materials from the Library's extensive and growing archival holdings representing gay and lesbian American literary figures.
Since Robert Giard's first portrait for Particular Voices, a 1985 photograph of playwright William Hoffman on display in the exhibition, the project has blossomed to include more than 500 works. Mr. Giard conceived of Particular Voices as a personal testament to the role that writing by gay men and lesbians, and by extension, its purveyors, archivists, and historians, has played in his life. He said, "I am delighted to have this first big exhibition at the Library because I haunted public libraries as a child. I worked my way through college and graduate school as a library assistant. Furthermore, my work is about books, authors, and keepers of Culture and history."
In 1997, MIT Press published Giard's book, Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers, an anthology of his portraits coupled with sample writings by the people pictured, as well as essays by Joan Nestle, Christopher Bram, and the photographer. The forward is by Julia VanHaaften, curator of the Photography Collection at The New York Public Library's Center for the Humanities, who also curated the exhibition.
Robert Giard's Work
Giard's work takes him into his subjects' homes or workspaces and displays a gamut of backgrounds, poses, and aesthetics. Luis Alarcon is shown with his Frieda Kahlo collection. Allen Ginsberg is pictured holding his own portrait of William Burroughs. Maria Irene Fornes is holding a stage set model. Tony Kushner is reclining on silk souvenir pillow, portraying Karl Marx. May Sarton is pictured in her charming New England sitting room aflood with sunlight. Joan Nestle, co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, is pictured holding a plaster sculpture of two faces nestling. Some of the other writers featured in the exhibition include Edward Albee, Dorothy Allison, Rafael Campo, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Samuel R. Delany, Kenward Elmslie, Lillian Faderman, Allan Gurganus, Doris Grumbach, Essex Hemphill, Audre Lord, Tim Miller, Kate Millett, Adrienne Rich, Barbara Smith, Edmund White, and Jonathan Williams.
Robert Giard's photographs have been previously displayed in several exhibitions, including those at the San Francisco Public Library, the Lesbian & Gay Community Center in New York City, the East Hampton Center for Contemporary Art, and in galleries at State University of New York campuses at Albany, Oswego, and Stony Brook.
Julia VanHaaften said, "Bob's work is particularly significant because he is continuing a grand tradition of photographing authors. His work complements the Library's collection of cultural portraits by Carl Van Vechten from the 1930s and 1940s."
"Particular Voices": Robert Giard's Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers opens April 18 and continues through June 27, 1998, in the Third Floor Print and Stokes Galleries of the Center for the Humanties at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.
Companion Volume for Sale in The Library Shops Robert Giard's Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers (MIT Press, 1997) is available in The Library Shops for $45 ($40.50 for Friends of the Library). The Library Shop at the Center for the Humanities (Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street) is open Monday­ Saturday, 11 a.m. ­6 p.m. The Library Shop in the Mid-Manhattan Library (Fifth Avenue and 40th Street) is open Monday­ Friday, 10 a.m.­ 7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.­ 6 p.m.; and Sunday, noon­ 5 p.m.
Exhibition hours are Monday, Thursday­, Saturday, 10 a.m.­ 6 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m.­ 7:30 p.m. Closed Sundays and, in observance of Memorial Day, Saturday, May 23 and Monday, May 25.
For information on current and upcoming exhibitions, programs, and services at The New York Public Library, visit the Library's website at www.nypl.org
Funding - This exhibition has been made possible by the continuing generosity of Miriam and Ira D. Wallach. Acquisition of "Particular Voices" has been made possible by gifts from the Daniele Agostino Foundation, Louis F. Arce, David P. Becker, William F. Burns, Dr. Herbert I. Cohen and Danny Cook, Dr. Nanette K. Gartrell, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Michael Hampton and George Stambolian, Deborah Ann Light, Joyce and Robert Menschel, Dr. Diane Mosbacher, Michael Piore, the Posner-Wallace Foundation, the Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Fund, and an anonymous donor.

15/03/98

Michael Oréa, Büro für Fotos, Cologne

Michael Oréa: i vesuviani
Büro für Fotos, Cologne
14 March - 18 April 1998

The photographic series of MICHAEL OREA (b. 1963) shows a journey from Germany to Naples and his stay in the Italian metropolis in January 1998.

The artist took photographs from the very first moment of a 14-hour trip by train departing from Munich until his arrival in Naples. He expresses the various impressions he received on his way meeting "i vesuviani", those people living nearby the volcano Vesuvius. He focused on suburbs and their inhabitants as a very careful passer-by inscribing a distance in the photographic material he delivers.

Putting two very small sepia toned prints (archive format) on each page he formed an associative memory. These images force you to look very close as if you were reading a book. The non- conceptual and almost by coincidence selected images create a poetic and sensitive view of a journey.

BURO FUR FOTOS
Ewaldistraße 5, 50670 Köln
www.burofurfotos.de

Ronald Jones at Metro Pictures, New York

Ronald Jones
Metro Pictures, New York
14 March - 11 April 1998

Ronald Jones' exhibition at Metro Pictures features sculptural versions of furniture with historical associations: the bed Neil Armstrong slept in his first evening back from the moon, the bed Jack Ruby slept in the night before he shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the chair where Dorothy Kilgallen sat as she interviewed Jack Ruby shortly before she mysteriously died, and the bed that Ethel Rosenberg slept in the night before she was executed. All of the objects have been scaled for toddlers and produced from photographic documentation.

Ronald Jones has used furniture throughout his work as abstract form, familiar functional object and symbol of a specific context. His first exhibition at Metro Pictures in 1987 presented a set of tables from the proposed designs for the Vietnam peace conference. Other such works include a bookcase from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, a table from a triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, and the chair where a death row inmate sat to eat his last meal.

Ronald Jones has written of the current exhibition: 
"Innocence, starkly juxtaposed to the inevitability of tragedy and whimsical madness are among the ensemble of themes told by a nursery rhyme written for the exhibition that begins:

Newspaper reporters are the curious type.
They will look from here to there-
just about anywhere
to dig up the news we should know about!"
In addition to exhibitions at galleries and museums, Ronald Jones has conceived garden projects including the design and execution of Pritzker Park in Chicago, the Rethymnon Centre of Contemporary Art in Crete, and the Botanical Gardens in Curitiba, Brazil. Jones writes art criticism and lectures extensively.

METRO PICTURES GALLERY
519 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011

02/03/98

Karen Kimmel, Sara Meltzer's On View..., NYC - step up *37

Karen Kimmel: step up *37
Sara Meltzer's On View..., New York
March 7 - April 4, 1998

Karen Kimmel presents her latest sculptural installation, step up *37, at Sara Meltzer's on view... This new work will be activated by a performance at the gallery on Saturday, March 7th, 6-8pm. An additional performance will take place on Thursday, March 26th, 6-8pm.

step up *37 derives out of Karen Kimmel's continuing fascination with social events. Motivated by observations of her earlier works: SAVOR, GUIDE, PRESS, QUENCH and COZY, the artist will again explore her concern with social structures. Karen Kimmel's controlled environments have depended on the incorporation of the audience into a realm of her own creation.

Departing from the prior necessity of audience involvement and direct role-play, step up *37 explores the ongoing exchange of the non-material and the influence of the most subtle changes in condition. This time, Karen Kimmel has chosen to involve her audience in a different way. In previous works, audience members were strictly attended to by a performer. In step up *37, Karen Kimmel has deliberately placed the audience in the role of viewer left free to explore the world of her forms.

step up *37 uses light as its departure point. Floating sculptural elements will be activated by light. As light hits the dangling sculptural objects, shadows will be cast upon the gallery walls. These shadows will constantly change as a result of the 3 participating performers' actions. Simultaneously, the performers will draw the shadows and in turn respond to the changing shadows created by one another.

Continuing to elaborate on the mechanics of action and reaction, Karen Kimmel has chosen to explore a new realm. While still imposing a systematic structure on her performers, in step up *37 she allows for responses related to chance.

SARA MELTZER'S ON VIEW...
588 Broadway, Room 612, New York, NY 10012
www.sarameltzer.com