Main Gallery
September 14 - December 2, 2012
Opening Reception: September 14, 6 pm - 8 pm

Picture Takers features artwork made from or inspired by vernacular photography. Loosely defined as photography of the everyday not originally intended as art, vernacular photography includes snapshots, wedding photographs, news and advertising images, family pictures, travel albums, passport and ID photos, mug shots, historical archives, and school portraits. While vernacular photographs have value as cultural artifacts and collectible objects in their own right, the artists in Picture Takers re-use them in transformative ways. Some translate the images from photography to another medium—painting, drawing, sculpture or video; others alter or rearrange photographs, changing the ways they are presented. By “taking” pictures originally made by others and creating new contexts for them, the artists in this exhibition invite us to speculate and fantasize about the images, and perhaps invent new narratives for them. Drawn from a wide range of sources, from flea markets and antique stores to news, social networking, and photo-sharing websites, they reveal much about the kinds of pictures we take, share and discard. The works in Picture Takers help us explore our personal and collective history, identity, memory and longing, while examining our evolving relationship to the photographic image.


Exhibiting Artists

Paul Chiappe Willie Cole Anne-Karin Furunes Joy Garnett Gail Gregg

Diana Jensen Cassandra C. Jones Whitfield Lovell Penelope Umbrico Aaron Williams

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE





Click the Play button to view the Flickr slideshow.