Art & Empathy: Storytelling for Social Change

An evening with artist, scholar, and TED Fellow LaToya Ruby Frazier

In today’s America, mass media dictates the dominant narrative, often silencing vulnerable communities and perspectives. Artist, scholar, activist and TED Fellow LaToya Ruby Frazier discusses how individuals and communities can collaborate on a grassroots level to amplify marginalized voices and come together with renewed agency.

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Thursday, October 5, 2017

7:00-8:00 p.m. | 45 minute keynote + 15 minute Q&A
8:00-9:00 p.m.| Exclusive Silver Dollar Society Reception with the speaker
Location: Corning Museum of Glass Auditorium (1 Museum Way, Corning, NY)

General Admission: $20 | Rockwell Members: $15 | Students: $10
Advance ticket purchase encouraged.

LaToya Ruby Frazier speaks at the Corning Museum of Glass

 

LaToya Ruby Frazier photographed in Chicago (John D. & Catherine MacArthur Foundation). 2015.

Ways of viewing the social landscape at Pier 24 Photography

The Grain of the Present at the nonprofit foundation Pier 24 Photography gives us new insights into the continued vitality of a certain way of working in the medium, and some of the most important photographers of the past 50 years are represented by astute selections of their work. On view through Jan. 31, the exhibition comprises what might almost be 17 substantial shows, each displayed in a separate room.

Photo: LaToya Ruby Frazier, Courtesy Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York/Rome

The various sub-exhibitions present classic works by nine first-generation observers of the so-called “social landscape” (Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lee Friedlander, Stephen Shore, Henry Wessel, Garry Winogrand) and eye-opening new takes by a second generation (Eamonn Doyle, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ed Panar, Alec Soth, Awoiska van der Molen, Vanessa Winship).

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By Charles Desmarais
Courtesy of The San Francisco Chronicle


The Grain of the Present
9 am to 5 pm Monday-Friday. Through Jan 31
Free (appointment required).
Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco
(415) 512-7424
www.pier24.org

 

Montreal’s Momenta focuses on fact and illusion in photography

By Robert Everett-Green
Courtesy of The Globe and Mail

Photography in its projected form is a prime public art in Montreal, and often a monumental one. It is less clear how devoted the city is to photography as an interior gallery art.

LaToya Ruby Frazier’s Mom Making an Image of Me, from The Notion of Family series, 2008. COURTESY OF MICHEL REIN AND GAVIN BROWN’S ENTERPRISE

“While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph.” Lewis Hine’s comment from the depth of the film era seems quaint in the age of Photoshop, when photos can indeed be made to tell polished untruths. Hine’s larger point, amplified later by Richard Avedon, was that the photographer’s choice of what to show is not so much the truth as an opinion, or an attempt at persuasion.

Photography’s relationship with the real is the overall theme of Montreal’s Momenta: Biennale de l’Image, the latest edition of what used to be called Le Mois de la Photo. This expansive yet relatively compact festival features 38 artists from 17 countries in 20 venues, anchored at Galerie de l’UQAM and VOX, Centre de l’image contemporaine.

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The Notion of Family at Silver Eye Center for Photography

Silver Eye presents a selection of LaToya Ruby Frazier’s seminal series The Notion of Family at it’s new Penn Avenue gallery. Frazier’s images explore the painful effects of decades of industrial decline, poverty, and systemic racism in her hometown of Braddock, PA. A working class town situated on the bank of the Monongahela River, Braddock’s economy had been rooted in industry since Andrew Carnegie built the Edgar Thomson Steel Works in 1873. A child of the 80s and 90s, Frazier grew up when most of the steel industry had left the region and the War on Drugs decimated her community. Frazier came to use photography and art as a way to question inequality and reclaim history.

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Sep. 21 – Nov. 18, 2017

Silver Eye Center for Photography
4808 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15224

Opening Reception: Thursday, Sep. 21, 6:00–8:00pm

Gallery Hours
Tues, Wed, Fri, 11:00am–6:00pm
Thurs, 11:00am–8:00pm
Sat, 11:00am–5:00pm

This exhibition is made possible by a generous grant from The Pittsburgh Foundation. The cyanotypes in this exhibition were created through the generous use of the production space at Pittsburgh Filmmakers/Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

On the Making of Steel Genesis: Sandra Gould Ford

Silver Eye Center for Photography presents LaToya Ruby Frazier’s On the Making of Steel Genesis: Sandra Gould Ford at the August Wilson Center’s BNY Mellon Gallery.

On the Making of Steel Genesis: Sandra Gould Ford is a collaborative exhibition that explores the work and life of artist Sandra Gould Ford, whom Frazier first met in 2015 at the Women and Girls Foundation’s Pittsburgh Conference. They soon realized they had a deep connection as Black women artists from Southwestern PA interested in working class issues. They discovered that they once lived in the same apartment building, the Talbot Towers in Braddock—Ford as a newlywed and Frazier as a newborn.

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Sep. 22 – Dec. 31, 2017

August Wilson Center
BNY Gallery
980 Liberty Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15222

Reception: Friday, Sep. 22 at Silver Eye Center for Photography, 4808 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA
For more information, please visit silvereye.org

Gallery Hours
Wednesday & Thursday: 11:00am – 6:00pm
Friday & Saturday, 11:00am – 8:00pm
Sunday: noon – 5:00pm

This exhibition is generously supported by a grant from The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Accessibility: For personal assistance selecting accessible seats or for more information about accessibility for a person with a disability, please contact Customer Service at 412-456-6666

’20/20′ at the Carnegie: A passionate family gathering of African American art

During two recent trips to “20/​20: The Studio Museum in Harlem and Carnegie Museum of Art,” I noticed only a relatively small number of black folks exploring the gallery spaces devoted to one of the most exciting art exhibitions Pittsburgh has hosted in years.

There are historic reasons for this, I suppose. Once upon a time, grand spaces such the Carnegie Museum of Art simply didn’t cater to the interests of Pittsburgh’s African-American community.

The good folks of Homewood, the Hill District and other predominantly black communities in Pittsburgh took the hint and pretty much stayed away. The snub was mutual and was compounded by generational indifference.

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By: Tony Norman
Courtesy of: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette