Samek Art Gallery Open House
Langone Center, third floor
Saturday, August 27, 2011 - 1:30 - 5 p.m.
Explore the visual arts on campus and Arts. Everywhere. by spending some time with the fall exhibitions of the Samek Gallery.
The exhibitions, through their formal conventions, juxtapose questions of representation, status, gender and race.
The Timothy Greenfield-Sanders portraits feature large-scale presentations of leading African-Americans who appeared in HBO's Black List Project. 'Self Portraits,' a second collection of autobiographical portraits created by artist Myra Greene, presents a subjective, formal opposition to Greenfield-Sanders' larger-than-life work.
"Black List Project"
"The Black List Project Volumes 2 and 3: Portraits by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders" exhibition showcases 25 framed portraits by film-maker/photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, who will discuss the exhibition on Tuesday, Aug. 30, at 5 p.m. in the Forum of the Elaine Langone Center.
Located in the Main Gallery, the portraits showcase luminaries who have excelled in a wide array of professions and endeavors. Greenfield-Sanders created The Black List Project with Elvis Mitchell, a National Public Radio correspondent and former New York Times film critic.
The two wished to use the photographs and the documentary to explore and, possibly, to redefine the negative connotations of the historically and racially charged word 'blacklist.'
The Greenfield-Sanders exhibition will give spectators an opportunity to delve into questions that emerge from the complex histories of portraiture and the conflation of those histories with the (re)presentation of the raced body. As we are all raced beings, the exhibition will evoke questions and potential dislocations of assumptions for all who experience.
"Self Portraits"
The "Self Portraits 2002 - 2004: Photographs by Myra Greene" exhibition features photographs by Myra Greene, who will discuss her work in a talk on Friday, Sept. 30, at 5 p.m. in the Gallery Theatre of the Elaine Langone Center.
Greene says of her work, "I experimented with photographic techniques to create a random patterning and destruction of the photographic ideals of clarity and passion. While murky, the images reward with revelation of something, my body and my presence. The body is cropped and photographed as mass. When transformed by process, the body and skin transform into layers of sensibility and emotion."
Greene evokes questions about the representation of the black female body historically and contemporarily with her formal techniques and her aesthetic interrogations.
An assistant professor of photography at Columbia College, Greene enjoys exploring photographic processes to engage issues about the body, memory, the absorption of culture and the ever-shifting identity of African-Americans.
Located in the Project Room, the Self Portraits exhibition is guest-curated by Tulu Bayar, associate professor of art.
"Myra Greene is one of the most important upcoming fine art photographers of our time, whose work makes the viewer question our culture's obsession with race and identity," said Bayar.
"Her eclectic use of photographic techniques varying from historical alternative processes to digital is determined by her ideas; not the other way around. Her 'Self-Portraits 2002-2004' Series creates a tension between visibility and invisibility of her own body and presence, offering the viewer a critical journey into the way we discuss race and body imagery."
The Black List Project/Myra Greene exhibitions were organized in conjunction with the Griot Institute for Africana Studies and the Department of Art and Art History.
The Samek Art Gallery is located on the third floor of the Elaine Langone Center, and is accessible by elevator. Admission is free. Gallery hours during the academic year are weekdays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursdays 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., weekends 1 to 5 p.m., and by appointment.
