Moderated by Marvin Heiferman, featuring Lesley A. Martin, Fred Ritchin, and Artie Vierkant
Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 5pm
Rutgers University
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Civic Square Auditorium
33 Livingston Avenue
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
www.masongross.rutgers.edu
In recent years, people involved in art and art photography worlds have been talking—passionately, obsessively, and sometimes defensively—about how the photographic medium is being transformed. Photographic imaging is central to, and has become thoroughly embedded in, all aspects of our private and public lives. The opticentric nature of 21st-century culture is exciting for some and nervous making for others, because the reach and ramifications of photographic images are inescapable. As part of the school’s “Mason Gross Presents” series, this panel brings together a number of leading practitioners in the field to talk about how, in their work, they are responding to what photography seems to be, at least for the moment, and where their work and the medium itself might be heading.
Panel participants include:
Marvin Heiferman, a curator and writer, organizes projects about photography and visual culture for institutions that include the Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian Institution, International Center of Photography, Whitney Museum of American Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, and the New Museum. Author and editor of Photography Changes Everything (2012), and two dozen other books on photography and visual culture, Heiferman has written for numerous museums publications, artist monographs, blogs, and magazines including The New York Times, Gagosian Gallery, CNN, Artforum, Design Observer, Aperture, and Art in America.
Lesley A. Martin is publisher of the Aperture book program and of The PhotoBook Review, a newsprint journal dedicated to the evolving conversation surrounding the photobook. Her writing on photography has been published in Aperture, American Photo, FOAM, and Lay Flat among other publications, and she has edited over 75 books of photography. She has curated several exhibitions of photography, including The Ubiquitous Image (2008), New York Times Magazine Photographs (2011), which she co-curated with Kathy Ryan (2011); and Aperture Remix (2012).
Fred Ritchin, recently named Dean of the School at ICP, was previously Professor of Photography and Imaging at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. A former picture editor of the New York Times Magazine, Ritchen co-founded PixelPress in 1999, which created multimedia projects and collaborated with humanitarian organizations including UNICEF, WHO, and the Rwanda Project. A prolific author and curator, Ritchin’s books include In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography (1990, 1999, 2010), After Photography (W. W. Norton, 2008), and Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen (Aperture, 2013).
Artie Vierkant is an artist whose work has been shown recently in one-person exhibitions at the Untitled and Higher Pictures galleries in New York, Exile in Berlin, The Green Room in London, and China Art Objects in Los Angeles. His work has been included in important group exhibitions including: Art Post Internet at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; What is a Photograph? at the International Center of Photography, New York; and The Millenial Biennial, London. Vierkant’s work has been reviewed in publications including The New York Times, Artforum, frieze, and Art Papers, and he has presented talks at ICP, John Hopkins University and the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum. Vierkant is currently an Adjunct Professor in New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
