Portraits: A Global View, Photographs and Prints
Baruch College will present the exhibition Portraits: A Global View, Photographs and Prints at the Mishkin Gallery from Friday, September 25, 2015 to Wednesday, December 9, 2015. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, September 24, 2015, from 6 to 8 p.m.
The human body has captured the attention of artists for centuries, but in the 20th and 21st centuries photographers and printmakers have given it new and often contested meanings. Despite its familiarity, the figure can startle us when it is made the focus of a photographic image. Portraits: A Global View, Photographs and Prints features an array of portraits, from Walker Evans鈥檚 image of a tenant farmer鈥檚 wife during the Great Depression in the United States, to Gilles Peress鈥檚 records of refugees in Bosnia and Tanzania, to Candace Scharsu鈥檚 tragic photograph of the scarred body of a child soldier in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone.
With a broad range of portraits, this exhibition examines the meanings we ascribe to the human body and individual identity. The photographs range from whimsical to disturbing, from traditional subject portraits to images of figures that actually are 鈥渙bjects鈥� - statues, mannequins, or even shadows or body sections. In some cases, individual photographs may overlap the boundaries between these categories, challenging theories of classification.
Artists such as Andy Warhol used portraiture to break down the boundaries between popular culture and high art. A silkscreen print of Sitting Bull functions in between a portrait and a stereotype, highlighting how an entire group has been represented by a glorified symbol. In his portfolio, Flashpoints: Selected Images of Gilles Peress, Peress employs the straightforward imagery of documentary photography in order to challenge the viewer鈥檚 expectations and perceptions about global events.
Portraiture is also fundamental to the work of artists like Carrie Mae Weems, whose Sea Islands Series figures prominently in this exhibition. Sea Islands Series is at once a celebration of a group with African origins and a poignant document of cross-cultural transformation. A self-portrait of the artist in 19th-century dress is included as part of a tableau of interrelated images, where it is juxtaposed by photographs of an empty chair and a pan of water.
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Baruch College will present the exhibition Portraits: A Global View, Photographs and Prints at the Mishkin Gallery from Friday, September 25, 2015 to Wednesday, December 9, 2015. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, September 24, 2015, from 6 to 8 p.m.
The human body has captured the attention of artists for centuries, but in the 20th and 21st centuries photographers and printmakers have given it new and often contested meanings. Despite its familiarity, the figure can startle us when it is made the focus of a photographic image. Portraits: A Global View, Photographs and Prints features an array of portraits, from Walker Evans鈥檚 image of a tenant farmer鈥檚 wife during the Great Depression in the United States, to Gilles Peress鈥檚 records of refugees in Bosnia and Tanzania, to Candace Scharsu鈥檚 tragic photograph of the scarred body of a child soldier in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone.
With a broad range of portraits, this exhibition examines the meanings we ascribe to the human body and individual identity. The photographs range from whimsical to disturbing, from traditional subject portraits to images of figures that actually are 鈥渙bjects鈥� - statues, mannequins, or even shadows or body sections. In some cases, individual photographs may overlap the boundaries between these categories, challenging theories of classification.
Artists such as Andy Warhol used portraiture to break down the boundaries between popular culture and high art. A silkscreen print of Sitting Bull functions in between a portrait and a stereotype, highlighting how an entire group has been represented by a glorified symbol. In his portfolio, Flashpoints: Selected Images of Gilles Peress, Peress employs the straightforward imagery of documentary photography in order to challenge the viewer鈥檚 expectations and perceptions about global events.
Portraiture is also fundamental to the work of artists like Carrie Mae Weems, whose Sea Islands Series figures prominently in this exhibition. Sea Islands Series is at once a celebration of a group with African origins and a poignant document of cross-cultural transformation. A self-portrait of the artist in 19th-century dress is included as part of a tableau of interrelated images, where it is juxtaposed by photographs of an empty chair and a pan of water.
Artists on show
- Andy Warhol
- Candace Scharsu
- Carrie Mae Weems
- Cindy Sherman
- Donna Ferrato
- Edward Steichen
- Elliott Erwitt
- Garry Winogrand
- Gilles Peress
- Henning Christiansen
- Jerome Liebling
- Jiri Georg Dokoupil
- Joel Meyerowitz
- Larry Clark
- Larry Fink
- Lucien Clergue
- Manuel Álvarez Bravo
- Milt Hinton
- Mimmo Paladino
- Neal Slavin
- Ralph Gibson
- Walker Evans
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