The Aperture Foundation, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and the Photography program at Parsons The New School for Design present a special screening of The Forgotten Space, a film by Allan Sekula and Noël Burch. The evening concludes with a conversation with Sekula, scholar Kristin Ross and independent film curator Chi-hui Yang.

The Forgotten Space follows container cargo aboard ships, barges, trains and trucks; listening to workers, engineers, planners, politicians, and those marginalized by the global transport system. We visit displaced farmers and villagers in Holland and Belgium, underpaid truck drivers in Los Angeles, seafarers aboard mega-ships shuttling between Asia and Europe, and factory workers in China—whose low wages are the fragile key to the whole puzzle. In Bilbao, we discover the most sophisticated expression of the belief that the maritime economy, and the sea itself, are somehow obsolete.

A range of materials is used: descriptive documentary, interviews, archive stills and footage, and clips from old movies. The result is an essayistic, visual documentary about one of the most important processes that affects us today. The Forgotten Space is based on Sekula’s book Fish Story (1995), seeking to understand and describe the contemporary maritime world in relation to the complex, symbolic legacy of the sea.

Posted on November 9, 2011

The Photography Program in the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons the New School for Design, The Aperture Foundation, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and The Shpilman Institute for Photography jointly present The Photographic Universe: A Conference. This two-day symposium brings together a range of leading photographers, scientists, theoreticians, historians, and philosophers from Parsons as well as other institutions, to reflect and discuss photography at a pivotal moment in its history.

The field of photography is constantly changing. Technologies, theories, and what constitutes a ‘photographer’ or a ‘photograph’ are prone to unending developments. In the last decade, this rapid transformation has only accelerated due to pervasive digitization. Quite possibly, photography is now in a similar place to where it was during the first few decades of its invention – a time when its emerging cultural significance quickly expanded due to innovative technological developments. Similarly, in the last two decades, we have seen an expanding definition of photography through the digital revolution, the Internet, and growing interest in new photographic processes and applications.

The Photographic Universe: A Conference reflects on this current moment. What is the importance of photography as a medium and a discipline, seen from the perspective of practitioners, users, pedagogues, technologists, historians and others? How can we evaluate contemporary culture within the expanding photographic field while speculating on the future of images? Prominent thinkers and practitioners discuss their roles in the expanding photographic field, evaluate its increasingly blurry relationship between art and life, and speculate on how photographic images will continue to change the way we see our world.

March 2 – Art and Philosophy
Charlotte Cotton & David Reinfurt , Andrea Geyer & Susie Linfield, Walter Benn Michaels & James Welling, Anne Collins Goodyear & Penelope Umbrico, Chris Boot & Susan Meiselas

March 3 – Science and Technology
Richard Benson & Frank Cost, Simone Douglas & Michael T. Jones, Anthony Aziz & Douglas Lanman, Wafaa Bilal & Virgina Rutledge, Trevor Paglen & Julia Bryan-Wilson

For more information, visit photographicuniverse.parsons.edu.

For video documentations of all the conversations that took place in the conference, visit vimeo.com/veralistcenter/videos.

Posted on February 3, 2011

Kicking off the spring 2011 Public Art Fund Talks series New York Stories, noted curators Lynne Cooke and Douglas Crimp discuss their exhibition Mixed Use, Manhattan: Photography and Related Practices, 1970s to the Present, which was on view at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid from June through September 2010. The exhibition surveyed the uses artists have made of New York City’s run-down lofts, abandoned piers, vacant lots, and deserted streets during its period of intensive de-industrialization in the 1970s and continuing to the present. As a centerpiece of their show, Cooke and Crimp reassembled Projects: Pier 18, conceived by Willoughby Sharp in 1971 and comprising twenty-seven artists’ projects made on a dilapidated Hudson River pier; the projects were photographed by Shunk-Kender and initially shown at the Museum of Modern Art. In addition to Projects: Pier 18, Mixed Use, Manhattan featured more than 250 works by forty artists, including Danny Lyon, Joan Jonas, Peter Hujar, Thomas Struth, Zoe Leonard, David Wojnarowicz, Barbara Probst, Steve McQueen, and Emily Roysdon.

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Lynne Cooke is the Chief Curator and Deputy Director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. She was co-curator of the 1991 Carnegie International, Artistic Director of the 1996 Sydney Biennale, and the curator at large for Dia Art Foundation from 1991 to 2009. Among her numerous publications are recent essays on the works of Francis Alÿs, Richard Serra, Agnes Martin, Josiah McElheny, Zoe Leonard, Juan Muñoz and Thomas Schütte.

Douglas Crimp is Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History at the University of Rochester and the author of Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer Politics (MIT Press, 2002) and On the Museum’s Ruins (MIT Press, 1993). Crimp curated the 1977 Pictures exhibition at Artists Space, New York, and an editor of October magazine from 1977 to 1990, where he edited the 1987 special issue AIDS: Cultural Analysis, Cultural Activism. He is currently completing a book about Andy Warhol’s films and working on a memoir of New York in the 1970s.

Posted on January 20, 2011

Aperture Foundation, the Photography Program in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics present a panel entitled Contemporary Documentary Practices, as part of the ongoing series, Confounding Expectations: Photography in Context.

Martha Rosler’s seminal critique of documentary photography in the 1981 text In, Around and Afterthoughts on Documentary Photography, this panel explores the viability of documentary practices today, both within the contemporary art realm and in the larger context of visual culture. In the 1981 text, Rosler claimed that documentary photography has yet to be realized in its full potential. Moving from a direct critique of documentary photographic practices, many contemporary photographers are utilizing art strategies to initiate and maintain social and political engagement through the use of the photographic medium. This discussion aims to examine photography’s ability to fostering social change in the contemporary moment and in generating a discussion about the importance of institutional and discursive framing in determining photographic meaning. Moderated by Susan Bright, panelists include LaToya Ruby Frazier, Chris Verene, and Michael Wolf.

Posted on October 26, 2010

The Aperture Foundation, the photography department in the School of Art, Media and Technology, and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics present a provocative panel discussion Images, Surveillance, and Power. Since its invention, the camera has been used to make images surreptitiously and to satisfy the desire to see what is hidden. Today, cameras on street corners, in shops, and public buildings silently record our every move, while web-based tools such as Google Earth adapt satellite technology to ensure that there is no escape from the camera’s all-seeing eye. Moderated by Tom Vanderbilt, panelists Trevor Paglen, and Jill Magid discuss how they use contemporary photographic technologies to examine issues of voyeurism, privacy law, security control and freedom of media.

Posted on October 18, 2010

This panel discussion examines the viability of the conventionally printed and published book —monographic, serial, facsimile, high-value, low-budget, no-budget, and otherwise—as a means of artistic production in view of digital media. At a time of mass convergence, when much of the social experience is structured by virtual, electronic means, how might the physical and material residue of small-scale publications distinguish themselves from a space apart for resistance and subjectivity? Moderated by Gil Blank, the panel includes artists Roe Ethridge and Collier Schorr, alongside with James Hoff and Miriam Katzeff of Primary Information.

The Aperture Foundation, publisher of Aperture magazine, is a not-for-profit institution dedicated to the support and advancement of photography as a fine art. In collaboration with the Photography Program in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons Confounding Expectations XI is generously supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Henry Nias Foundation, the ASMP Fund, and the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation. The lecture series has been hosted by The New School since 2001.

Posted on March 29, 2010

This panel will explore the multiple ways in which contemporary artists have utilized projection and installation strategies to display still photographic images, creating immersive and cinema-like experiences in museum and gallery environments. Departing from the large-scale, tableau treatments of the photographic image printed and framed as wall-based objects, exemplified in works by Jeff Wall, Andreas Gursky, and Gregory Crewdson, in recent years contemporary artists have increasingly employed projection devices––ranging from analogue to digital high-definition––to display photographic images as immaterial light projections, often incorporating temporal and audio-visual elements that evoke experiences recalling cinematic contexts and yet retain distinctly photographic qualities. The Aperture Foundation, publisher of Aperture magazine, is a not-for-profit institution dedicated to the support and advancement of photography as a fine art. The lecture series has been hosted by The New School since 2001. It is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Presented by the Aperture Foundation in association with the Department of Photography at Parsons The New School for Design and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, with generous support from the Ketterling Family Foundation and the Henry Nias Foundation.

Posted on September 20, 2009

The Aperture Foundation, the Photography Department at Parsons The New School for Design, and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics present a new season of panel discussions focusing on photography. This event celebrates the launch of the innovative Los Angeles County Museum of Art book project Words Without Pictures, which documents roughly one year of conversations about the most pressing issues shaping contemporary photography.  Please join us for a panel discussion about Words Without Pictures and the contemporary landscape of artist books and photo publishing.

This lecture series is presented with generous support from the Kettering Family Foundation and the Henry Nias Foundation. The program is made possible in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Posted on September 20, 2009