Carl Chiarenza @ Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Carl Chiarenza
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Through November 12, 2019

CARL CHIARENZA (American, born 1935)

Burnham Brothers, Essex, MA, 1962, printed later

Gelatin silver print

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Gift of Carl Chiarenza, 2016.516

© Carl Chiarenza, Courtesy of the VMFA

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) presents an exhibition of works by photographer CARL CHIARENZA, on view in the Photography Gallery. Born to Italian immigrant parents and raised in Rochester, New York, Carl Chiarenza’s interest in photography developed early in his childhood. From 1953 to 1957, Carl Chiarenza studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology under the direction of Minor White and Ralph Hattersley. Since the late 1960s, Carl Chiarenza has been a leading figure in a movement that seeks to expand the conceptual boundaries of photography.

Carl Chiarenza’s photographs have been included in more than 80 solo and 250 group exhibitions since 1957. His black and white photographs, which often contain elements of collage, have continued to challenge notions of landscape, abstraction, visitor perspective, and the very medium of photography itself. This free exhibition is curated by Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Executive Director and CEO Alex Nyerges.

“The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is incredibly grateful to Carl Chiarenza for his generous gift of works to the museum,” says Alex Nyerges. “I am honored to curate the first Chiarenza exhibition at VMFA, and hope that these twenty-two phenomenal works will offer museum members and visitors an opportunity for a deeper understanding and fresh perspective of the limitless world of photography.”

CARL CHIARENZA (American, born 1935)

Sulfite White Figure with Spears, 1962, printed later

Gelatin silver print

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Gift of Carl Chiarenza, 2016.517

© Carl Chiarenza, Courtesy of the VMFA

Carl Chiarenza is inspired by both the beauty and human connections to landscapes, but has been continuously dissatisfied with traditional outdoor nature photographs. In acknowledging that depictions of landscapes in paintings are constructed, he began to approach his photographs as abstract and emotional constructions that allow us to examine nature in relation to the self.

The key characteristic that came to dominate Carl Chiarenza’s style was nyctophilia, or a preference for and comfort in darkness. His photographs do not offer familiar faces or landscapes; there is no evident cultural or psychological framework for the viewer to build their response. Rather, the lack of specificity and sense of timelessness reminds us that all photographs are constructions of reality that produce various interpretations relative to each viewer. Carl Chiarenza’s work invites individual reflection by forcing us to examine the subliminal workings of the mind. In these photographs, nothing is absolute, leaving all realities subject to each observer. 

VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS - VMFA
200 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd., Richmond,  VA 23220
www.vmfa.museum