Art and Architecture: Gary Schneider and Deborah Martin Kao - Portrait Sequences 1975 - An Art Book Series Event

March 12, 2013

Viewing videos on NYPL.org requires Adobe Flash Player 9 or higher.

Get the Flash plugin from adobe.com

Embed

Copy the embed code below to add this video to your site, blog, or profile.

FREE - Berger Forum doors open at 5:30 p.m.

Join us for a fascinating conversation, with Deborah Martin Kao and Gary Schneider, marking the publication of Portrait Sequences 1975 (OneStar Press, 2012). The prints were originally exhibited at Artist Space in 1977. Schneider’s portrait photography is discussed, a subject Deborah Martin Kao has extensively written about in the essay for his artist book John In Sixteen Parts (1996), and as the author of the catalog for his survey show Gary Schneider: Portraits at The Sackler Museum (2004) which also included the 1975 Portrait Sequences.

 SELF-PORTRAIT I. P10 P11Gary Schneider. PORTRAIT SEQUENCES, 1975: SELF-PORTRAIT I. P10 P11"In 1975 I began working on a film that looked at the body and face in close-up. I used a still camera to storyboard and soon realized that the sequences did not need to be made into a film. When exhibited they comprised as few as one image and as many as sixteen. Unlike cinematic linear progression these sequences could be read from left to right or the reverse or episodically. It was factual as well as metaphorical, and also dealt with a private exchange between my subject and myself, that could then be made public. These remain essential aspects of my work. For the book, Portrait Sequences 1975, I maintained the original size of the prints, restricting me to one per page. As a consequence the sequences often had to be reconfigured and this has breathed new life into the work itself."

 SELF-PORTRAIT I. P24Gary Schneider. PORTRAIT SEQUENCES, 1975: SELF-PORTRAIT I. P24Gary Schneider’s early work in painting, performance and film remain integral to his explorations of portraiture and identity. His solo exhibitions include Artist Space, New York; The Musee de L’Elysee Lausanne, Switzerland; The International Center of Photography, New York; Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii; the Sackler Museum, Boston; The Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego; and The Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland. He received an Eisenstaedt award from Life Magazine, a National Endowment for The Arts grant, and a Lou Stoumen Award. Some public collections that hold his work are The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Canada, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Whitney Museum, Yale University Art Museum, The Guggenheim Museum, Harvard University Art Museums and The Boston Museum of Fine Art. Schneider received his MFA from Pratt Institute and is an Assistant Professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. This event was organized with the help of Hannah Dumes at David Krut Projects in New York. Schneider is also represented by Stephen Daiter Gallery in Chicago, Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston and Gallery Françoise Paviot in Paris.

 NINA. P88 P89Gary Schneider. PORTRAIT SEQUENCES, 1975: NINA. P88 P89Deborah Martin Kao is the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography, Acting Head of the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Chief Curator at the Harvard Art Museums. She has organized exhibitions, published and taught on topics ranging from daguerreotypes to conceptual photography. Her major publications include Ben Shahn’s New York: The Photography of Modern Times, of which she was coauthor with Laura Katzman and Jenna Webster (Yale, 2000); Gary Schneider: Portraits (Yale, 2004); and Instituting Reform: The Social Museum of Harvard University, 1903-1931 (Yale, 2012), co-authored and edited with Michelle Lamuniere. Kao is currently at work on a project that explores cross-cultural identity narratives in contemporary photography.

In its fifth year the program series An Art Book, initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni, is a celebration of the essential importance and beauty of art books. The events showcase book presentations and discussions by world renowned artists, critics, curators, gallerists, historians and writers.