Double Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the Camera, showcases 90 vintage photographs from The Amistad Center for Art & Culture’s historical collection of art and artifacts with photo-based art by contemporary African-American artists. The exhibition organized by the Amistad Center for Art and Culture at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of art in Hartford, CT, opens to the public at the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland on Thursday, January 20, 2011, with an opening reception on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 from 5pm to 7pm. The exhibition will stay on view until Friday, March 11, 2011.

Double Exposure, curated by guest curators Lisa Henry and Frank Mitchell, illuminates the persistent interplay between the past and the present in African American photography. The exhibition highlights and explores the African American experience by bringing together photographic works from the 19th and 20th centuries by artists who expressed the experience of race through the use of personal, cultural and historical images. The exhibit delves into the interconnected reality of the past and the present for African American photography as well as concepts of identity and memory through visually theorizing the shifting relationships between black cultural memory and contemporary photographic storytelling.

Double Exposure presents the history of African American photography in thematic sections rather than a strict chronology. The major themes include: the influence of historical and family photography on contemporary African American art; the multiple uses of photographic appropriation, a technique that has been used since the 1970s to commemorate as well as to critique; the importance of the portrait tradition in African American photography from the earliest studio portraits of the 19th century to the mural size color and digital portraits made today; and the influence of master photographers such as Augustus Washington and James Van Der Zee. The techniques represented in the exhibit include: daguerreotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, traditional silver prints, Polaroids, digital prints, assemblage, and photographs printed on linen, wood and felt.
The works of a variety of African American photographers are represented; in addition to those mentioned earlier, also included are J. P. Ball, Napoleon Sarony, Cornelius Marion Battey and Addison Scurlock as well as contemporary photographers such as Leslie Hewitt, Carla Williams, Clarissa Sligh, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, Albert Chong, and Myra Greene. Varying greatly in age and life experiences, as well as having different artistic, photographic and cultural interests, these artists display the daily lives of African American individuals and families in the Antebellum and Post Antebellum periods across the United States. This exhibition displays a range of works that cover significant events and periods throughout the history of the African American community such as the Reconstruction period to the Harlem Renaissance and beyond. This exhibition was sponsored by Aetna.

About the David C. Driskell Center
The David C. Driskell Center celebrates the legacy of David C. Driskell – Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Art, Artist, Art Historian, Collector and Curator – by preserving the rich heritage of African American visual art and culture. The Driskell Center is committed to preserving, documenting and presenting African American art, as well as replenishing and expanding the field of African American art. This exhibition is supported in part, by a special fund from the Office of the President at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council.
All exhibitions and events at the David C. Driskell Center are free and open to the public. The facility is wheelchair accessible. The Driskell Center Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 11:00am to 4:00pm with extended hours on Wednesday until 6:00pm. The Driskell Center observes all UMCP closings including snow days and holidays; for closing due to Inclement Weather, visit www.umd.edu/umnews/weatherprocedures. For further information regarding this exhibition and future activities at the Driskell Center, please call 301.314.2615 or visit www.driskellcenter.umd.edu.

August 27 - November 13, 2010
Artists Reception October 7; 6-8PM
Courtyard Partnership Gallery
Courtyard by Marriott Denver Downtown 934 16th Street, Denver, Colorado 80202

Jessica Ellis | Shane Coffey | Veronica Franklin | Timothy C. Flood | Nicole Vail | Patti Hallock | Adrianna Santiago | Angela Kent
Walter Barton | Michele Wysocki | Karen Roehl | Theresa A. Anderson |
Stephanie A. Lindsey | Rachel Hawthorn | Sami Alkarim
Cortney Lane Stell | Nicole Ford | Nathan Billington | Juan Hernandez | Colleen Chisholm | Joanna Stiehl

January 23, 2010

Presentation by Exhibition Curator, Lisa Henry - 5:00 pm
Opening Reception: 6:00pm - 7:00pm

About the exhibition:

Double Exposure showcases vintage photographs from the Amistad Center for Art & Culture’s historical collection of art and artifacts with photo-based art by contemporary African-American artists. This landmark exhibition comprehensively explores the African American experience through an examination of representation in photographic works from the 19th and 20th centuries. It highlights African American history, as well as the history of photography and includes photographs, albums, and cased images, as well as contemporary art that incorporate vintage photographic imagery.

It brings together photographers from diverse backgrounds with different artistic, photographic and cultural interests. The contemporary section features late 20th century photography, photo-collage, and mixed media by artists that visualize the black experience and identify a larger contemporary experience of race through the use of personal, cultural and historical images of race, society and identity. Concepts of identity and memory form one of the exhibition’s over-arching themes, visually theorizing the shifting relationships between black cultural memory and contemporary photographic storytelling.

According to guest curators Lisa Henry and Frank Mitchell, the exhibit illuminates the persistent interplay between the past and the present in African-American photography. The exhibit also looks at the myriad choices now available to photo-based artists. The techniques represented in the exhibit include: daguerreotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, traditional silver prints, Polaroids, digital prints, assemblage, and photographs printed on linen, wood and felt. Double Exposure presents the history of African-American photography in thematic sections as opposed to a strict chronology. The major themes include: the influence of historical and family photography on contemporary African-American art; the multiple uses of photographic appropriation, a technique that has been used since the 1970s to commemorate as well as to critique; the importance of the portrait tradition in African-American photography from the earliest studio portraits of the 19th century to the mural size color and digital portraits made today; and the influence of master photographers such as Augustus Washington and James Van Der Zee.

Significant figures from the history of African American photography represented in Double Exposure include J. P. Ball, Napoleon Sarony, Cornelius Marion Battey and Addison Scurlock. Contemporary photographers include Leslie Hewitt, Carla Williams, Clarissa Sligh, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, Albert Chong, and Myra Greene. Predominant subjects include the history of African-Americans as photographic subjects; the diversity and artistry of black life as depicted by African-Americans who have taken up the camera to create their own images; contemporary works that comment on slavery and the civil rights conflicts of the 20th century; and Contemporary explorations of family, identity and history.

Lisa Henry is an independent curator and writer. She is a former Assistant Curator for American Art at the Newark Museum in New Jersey. Her exhibitions include: The Grapes of Wrath: Horace Bristol’s California Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, I’m Thinking of a Place at the UCLA Hammer Museum, and Blacks in and Out of the Box at The California African American Museum.

Frank Mitchell is Consulting Historian for The Amistad Center for Art & Culture at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Collections Manager for the New Haven Municipal Art Collection, and has taught museum studies for Trinity College’s Graduate Studies Program. He is a founding partner of the consulting group Westside Works and board president of the Connecticut public history cooperative Stone Soup.

Photographers Represented in the Exhibition:
Maya Freelon Asante . J.P. Ball ◦ April Banks ◦ Cornelius Marion Battey ◦ Sheila Pree Bright ◦ Kesha Bruce ◦ Albert Chong ◦ Renne Cox ◦ Gerald Cyrus ◦ Alan Kimara Dixon ◦ Bridget Goodman ◦ Myra Greene ◦ Leslie Hewitt ◦ Melvina Lathan ◦ Stephanie A. Lindsey ◦ Willie Robert Middlebrook ◦ H.P. Moore ◦ Wendy Phillips ◦ Glynnis Reed ◦ Betye Saar ◦ Napoleon Sarony ◦ Rhoba L. Scales ◦ Addison Scurlock ◦ Beyaté Ross Smith ◦ Lorna Simpson ◦ Clarissa Sligh ◦ Darryl Smith ◦ James Van Der Zee ◦ Carl Van Vechten ◦ Augustus Washington ◦ Lewis Watts ◦ Carrie Mae Weems ◦ Carla Williams ◦ Amanda Williams ◦ Deborah Willis ◦ Hank Willis Thomas

The Southeast Museum of Photography is a service of Daytona State College
1200 W. International Speedway Blvd. (Building 1200) Daytona Beach, FL, 32114, (386) 506-4475

DOUBLE EXPOSURE: AFRICAN AMERICANS BEFORE AND BEHIND THE CAMERA

APRIL 16 AT DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM

The persistent interplay between the past and present in African-American photography
is illuminated in the exhibition “Double Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the
Camera,” which opens April 16 at the DePaul University Art Museum, 2350 N. Kenmore Ave.,
Chicago.
The exhibition, which runs through June 14, draws heavily from The Amistad Center for
Arts & Culture’s extensive collection of 19th and early 20th century photographs. It contrasts
these photographs with photo-based art by contemporary African-American artists. The exhibit –
which was funded by a generous donation from Aetna – is traveling to a number of museums
throughout the country. This is its only Chicago appearance.
“Double Exposure” debuts with a pre-reception lecture by Deborah Willis, professor and
chair at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, at 4 p.m. April 16 in the museum’s
North Gallery. Willis is a distinguished photographer and one of the nation’s leading historians
of African-American photography. She was a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and Fletcher Fellow and
a past MacArthur Fellow, as well as a recipient of the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation
award.
An opening reception will follow the lecture from 5 to 7 p.m. at the museum. The exhibit
was curated by Lisa Henry and Frank Mitchell, independent curators for The Amistad Center for
Art & Culture, which houses one of the country’s most comprehensive art and humanities
collections devoted to the African-American experience and is located at the Wadsworth
Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Conn.
“Double Exposure” examines myriad choices now available to photo-based artists.
Techniques represented in the exhibition include daguerreotypes, tintypes, cartes de visites,
traditional silver prints, Polaroids and digital prints, assemblage and photographs printed on
linen, wood and felt.
“Each section of the exhibition – the historical material and the contemporary work –
could stand alone, but put together they are revelatory. Each informs and deepens the other, and
seen as a whole they raise profound questions about the nature of identity, history and memory,”
Museum Director Louise Lincoln said of the exhibition.
Major themes of the exhibit include the influence of historical and family photographs on
contemporary African-American art; the multiple uses of photographic appropriation, a
technique that has been used since the 1970s to commemorate as well as critique; the importance
of the portrait tradition in African-American photography from the earliest studio portraits of the
19th century to the mural-size color and digital portraits made today; and the influence of master
photographers such as Augustus Washington, James Van Der Zee, Gordon Parks and Roy
DeCarava.
In conjunction with the exhibition, artists and critics will address aspects of the works on
view at a symposium on May 23 at the museum. For more details, visit the museum Web site at
museums.depaul.edu/artwebsite/.
The DePaul Art Museum is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.;
Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. For more
information about “Double Exposure” or other museum programs and exhibitions, please call
773/325-7506 or visit museums.depaul.edu/artwebsite/.