Herter Art Gallery

Herter Art Gallery is pleased to present two new ehibitions.

An opening reception will be held Thursday November 8th from 4 to 6pm
Both exhibitions will be on view from November 8th to December 4th

"Contested Landscapes"

The exhibition, "Contested Territories" considers some of the waysin which landscape photography can still bear witness to the ways of life and events of this world. The documentary photograph is one of the most intimate forms of photographic practice and, in turn, one that explicitly associates itself with public space. It has often been employed to provide us with an understanding of how landscapes of conflict are remembered and memorialized, landscapes that were historically contested, places where battles were fought, where social upheaval has occurred, or where racism existed. Amon the areas of 'conflict' featured in the exhibit are Isreal/Palestine, Africa, US/Mexican border, de-industrialized cities such as Detroit, suburban sprawl, as well as spaces that address issues such as personal privacy.

For the mostpart, the magazines and newspapers that had traditionally relied upon such kinds of reportage to explain the world to their readers, held clarity, brevity and a supposed objectivity to be the guiding virtues, and placed less value on images that expressed subjective, or overtly personal points of view. While the former kinds of imagery were often colorful, explicit, and humanist in spirit, they often lacked any critical sense of themselves.

However, limitations such as these were precisely what today's highly educated photographers seek to challenge. They are more acutely and self-conscientiously aware of the abyss between photographic appearances and the events they sought to portray. In addition, the specter of television and the video camera's usurpation of photography's conventional documentary functions, have paradoxically, offered to this younger generation the prospect of a revivified documentary genre, one that allowed them to convey in their work, more complex and sophisticated meanings, of both a social and a personal sort, and to be in more control of the contexts in which their images are presented.  The whole question of the 'viability' of so-called documentary photography in the digital age is one of the major issues in todays photographic practice, which is why I believe an exhibition of the sort I have described to be relevant and timely.

Image: Doug Rickard  #82.948842, Detroit, MI. 2009, 2010

ARTISTS:
SASHA BEZZUBOV and JESSICA SUCHER, JEFF  BROUWS, DAVID JORDANO, BARRY  FRYDLEND, NICOLAI  HOWALT  and TRINE SØNDERGAARD, SIMON  NORFOLK, RICHARD  MOSSE, JENNIFER RAY, DOUG  RICKARD, MICHAEL WOLF

"this is that and that is this"
Susan Jahoda

Gallery Hours
Monday - Friday 11am - 4pm, Sunday  - 1pm - 4pm

Further information may be obtained from gallery director,
Trevor Richardson,
125a Herter Hall
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA  01003
413 545-0976