Durham Exhibitions

August 29, 2024 – January 05, 2025
Nasher Museum of Art
SECOND NATURE: PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE AGE OF THE ANTHROPOCENE

Just over twenty years ago, scientists introduced a term to denote a new geological epoch in which human activity has had a marked impact on the global climate: the Anthropocene. Since that time, the concept of the Anthropocene has been exposed to a wider public audience through expanding environmental studies and scholarship, increasing coverage in the popular press, widespread and fervent activism, and a variety of artistic responses.

Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene is the first major exhibition to examine the Anthropocene through the lens of contemporary photography. Comprised of forty-five photo-based artists working in a variety of artistic methods from studios and sites across the globe, Second Nature explores the complexities of this proposed new age. Collectively, these artists offer compelling visual imagery necessary for picturing the Anthropocene: aerial views of beautiful but toxic sites, collages that incorporate archival photographs to counter colonial narratives, depictions of urbanism on an unimaginable scale, and imagined yet precarious futures. In doing so, they address urgent issues such as vanishing ice, rising waters, and increasing resource extraction, as well as the deeply rooted and painful legacies of colonialism, forced climate migration, and socio-environmental trauma.

Since its emergence, the term “Anthropocene” has entered the common lexicon and has been adopted by disciplines outside of the sciences including philosophy, economics, sociology, geography, and anthropology, effectively linking the Anthropocene to nearly every aspect of post-industrial life. Organized around four thematic sections, “Reconfiguring Nature,” “Toxic Sublime,” “Inhumane Geographies,” and “Envisioning Tomorrow,” the exhibition proposes that the Anthropocene is not one singular narrative, but rather a diverse and complex web of relationships between and among humanity, industry, and ecology—the depths and effects of which are continually being discovered.

October 1- 31, 2024
Artist Recetption October 18, 2024
Through This Lens Gallery

Willie Osterman: Wet Plate Photography

Willie Osterman is a Professor and Program Chair of the Fine Art Photography department in the Photographic Arts Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York where he has been teaching, researching and working as an active artist since 1984. He received his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in photography with a minor in art history from Ohio University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Visual Design and Photography with the award of two teaching fellowships from the University of Oregon.

After graduating he became a visiting assistant professor at the University of Oregon for two years. His teaching experience includes the Ansel Adams Workshops in Yosemite National Park, and in traveling workshops in twelve US states as well as in Italy, France, Austria and Croatia. As Former Curator of Photography at the University of Oregon Museum of Art, he received two grants from the National Endowment of the Arts. He was a printing assistant to the production of the Ansel Adams Special Edition Prints working with Mr. Adams in Carmel California and has worked as a contract photographer for the Eastman Kodak Company. His publication 'Déjà View: A Cultural Re-Photographic Survey of Bologna, Italy' in its second edition is now out of print. During his sabbatical for the year 2009/10 he received a Fulbright Scholars Award to develop a Masters Degree program and teach at the Academy of the Dramatic Arts, University of Zagreb, Croatia.

His work is in numerous collections including: The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; University of New Mexico Museum of Art, Albuquerque; International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; New Orleans Museum of Art; Portland Museum of Art, Museum of Art, Eugene, Oregon; Lotus Collection, Salzburg, Austria; Museo della Fotografia Cinisell Balsamo, Milan, Italy; Museo Civico del Risorgimento, Bologna, Italy; Alinari Photographic Archive, Florence, Italy; Muzej Grada Zagreba (City Art Museum of Zagreb), Croatia.

He has exhibited widely in the US including: Aspen Museum of Art, Aspen, Colorado; The Gallery @ 49th Street, New York, NY; The Ansel Adams Gallery, Yosemite, California; The Photographic Center, Carmel, California; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida; The Sert Gallery, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Vision Gallery, San Francisco, CA, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY. His International Exhibitions, among others, include: Uluslararasi Foto raf Yari masi International Exhibition of Photography, Yildiz University, Istanbul, Turkey; Incorocio sulla via del Sale, Sacile, Italy; Centro Ricerca Archiviazione della Fotografia, Milan, Italy; USSR Traveling Photographic Exhibit; Diavassi Cultural Center, La Strada ‘Regina Margherita’ Athens, Greece; Lotus Gallery, Ernsting/Salzburg, Austria; Ping Yao International Photography Festival, Ping Yao, China; Galerija Klovicevi dvori Kula Lotrscak in Zagreb, Croatia.

September 9- November 1, 2024
Artist Recetption October 18th from 6-8pm
Semans Gallery: Durham Arts Council

Sentimental Riffs: Mark Anthony Brown Jr.

sentimental riffs is an interdisciplinary exhibition that mines at the emotional depth of vernacular photography. This exhibition brings together works from different projects united by their engagement with the photograph from a sentimental disposition. These works vary in method, materials, and concept but intersect at the shared focus on the photograph’s emotive potential and how sentiment can be articulated through a visual means. The title sentimental riffs draws on an analogy to riffs in musical compositions, a recurring thematic element that shapes and defines a piece of music. “Riffs” in this context represents the varying meditations on sentimentality explored throughout the exhibition.

September 9- November 1, 2024
Artist Recetption October 18th from 6-8pm
Allenton Gallery: Durham Arts Council

Jennifer Cantwell: Where Are We?

I have always struggled with the idea of the self-portrait. The camera is an ingenious tool that allows an introvert like me, a means of making oneself invisible by placing the focus on something or someone else. But when the camera is turned around and is in skilled hands, there is no longer anywhere to hide as it always bores down into one’s soul. I find myself at a point in life that I no longer want to be invisible. I want to be seen, but I want to be seen as myself, to break down the assumptions people make. But to be truly seen, one must know who they are. As life brought on new roles and identities, wife and mother, somewhere along the way I had forgotten who I am.

In my quest to regain my sense of self, I chose to focus on the fundamental relationships that have shaped me; those that are in the present, and those that are in the past. I have manifested this through masquerade. These photographs are not literally me, they are characters, people from my past amalgamated into one. They represent phases in my life and places and people I have known, but they are also the universal, the archetype. They are you just as much as they are me.