fall 1990 - summer 1991 exhibition program

Richard Bolton: The Emperor's New Clothes:
Censorship, Sexuality and the Body Politic
July 31 – September 15, 1990
This installation by Richard Bolton provided an opportunity for a more complicated discussion of the issue of human sexuality and the controversy over the funding of sexually expressive work by the National Endowment for the Arts. In this interaction of image and text, Bolton addressed the photographic representation of human sexuality in art, popular culture, and pornography. The exhibition was shown in conjunction with When Right is Wrong: Artists Respond to the Crisis and Diane Neumaier: Metropolitan Tits (Met Tits).

Diane Neumaier: Metropolitan Tits (Met Tits)
July 31 – September 15, 1990
This series of color photographs, made in the tradition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's coffee table book series, critiqued patriarchal art history by featuring the depiction of the human female breast within the picture frame.

Contact: Photojournalism Since Vietnam
September 21 – October 21, 1990
This critically-acclaimed exhibition and audio-visual show consisted of an award winning body of work by the photographers of Contact Press Images, the renowned international picture agency established in 1976. Seven Contact member photographers were featured, including David Burnett, Alon Reininger, Dilip Mehta, Jose Azel, Frank Fournier, Kenneth Jarecke, Annie Leibovitz, as well as several photographers who contributed to the agency over the years.

When Right is Wrong: Artists Respond to the Crisis
September 30 – October 22, 1990
When Right is Wrong consisted of a series of videotapes, curated by Mark Piersa, which documented artists' protests against censorship.

Linda Connor: Spiral Journey
November 7 – December 2, 1990
Spiral Journey was a mid-career retrospective of work by the distinguished American photographer Linda Connor. The show was a traveling exhibition from the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and included 112 photographs taken between the years 1967and 1990. The exhibition and accompanying book revealed the artist as a photographer of the land and its people, nature and culture. Both encompassed Connor's early still-lifes, collage works, a selection from her 1979 monograph Solos , and her celebrated gold toned silver gelatin prints made in Asia, Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Australia.

Convergence: 8 Photographers
December 14, 1990 – February 24, 1991
This group exhibition was produced by African-American photographers during the 1980s and was organized in collaboration with the Visual Studies Workshop. The photographs in Convergence ranged from straightforward black and white portraits to mixed media pieces that combined image and text. The show was guest curated by Deborah Willis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and featured the work of Albert Chong, Todd Gray, Coreen Simpson, Clarissa Sligh, Jeffrey Scales, Elisabeth Sunday, Christian Walker, and Wendell White. The exhibition was also presented in collaboration with the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA) and their exhibition Majestic Ruins: Great Zimbabwe.

Urban and Natural Landscapes
January 6 – February 28, 1991
In conjunction with Convergence, the PRC presented Urban and Natural Landscapes , featuring images by local artist Archy LaSalle.

1991 Leopold Godowsky, Jr. Color Photography Awards
February 1 – March 3, 1991
This award program honors the co-inventor of Kodachrome film, recognizes artists from different regions of the world who have achieved excellence in color photography and is administered by the PRC. This exhibition featured artists from Central and South America and the Caribbean Islands. The three jurors for the awards were Merry Foresta, then Curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC; Charles Biasiny-Rivera, then Director of En Foco and the Editor of Nueva Luz in New York; and Susana Leval, then Chief Curator at El Museo Del Barrio, in New York. The winners were Luiz Braga of Brazil, Hector Mendez Carratini of Puerto Rico, and Salvador Lutteroth of Mexico, Santiago Harker of Colombia, Arnaldo Pappalardo of Brazil. Michael Jones of Chile received an Honorable Mention. Please click here to view the special Godowsky online site and for more information about the Godowsky Awards.

Shelby Lee Adams and Andrew Savulich
March 8 – April 7, 1991
Shelby Lee Adam's photographs portray the people of the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky and document the life of individuals living in isolated areas, cut off from mainstream society. Andrew Savulich's diptychs depicted the extremes of the urban environment, and scenes that captured the city's implicit mixture of violence and tedium. He juxtaposed images that were lurid, cruel, and sometimes humorous to create narratives that are essentially satirical and even cynical.

The Search for Origins: James Casebere
March 13 – April 21, 1991
The Search for Origins featured a large-scale installation by New York artist James Casebere. Casebere photographed models, which he constructed, that distorted and intensified subject matter chosen from the artist's personal memories, mass media, and the American consciousness. The images were displayed in the form of transparencies mounted onto light boxes.

Battle of Chicamauga
April 12 – May 12, 1991
This two-part installation featured photographs by Warren Neidich. The front hall of the PRC showcased Neidich's Aerial Reconnaissance Photographs , tintypes of aerial photographs of Civil War reenactments, which were accompanied by text about current aerial reconnaissance missions, drawn from contemporary newspapers. Amputation Without Anesthesia , in the rear hallway, depicted a staged amputation. The two installations commented on our tendency to view the depiction of war with a detached fascination.

Future Gardens
May 3 – June 23, 1991
Future Gardens was an installation by holographic artist Betsy Conors that recreated the gardens of Japan using laser transmission and reflective holograms and computer controlled lighting, via foliage from Jamaica Plain and Somerville.

Youth Photography Exhibition
May 17 – May 31, 1991
This exhibition showcased the prize-winning photographs from the Youth Photography Contest held by the PRC.

The Transformed Icon
June 4 – June 28, 1991
This exhibition by Esther Solondz featured painted photographs of people she found while working part-time at a soup kitchen in New Jersey. The subjects were painted in the guise of angels and saints and served to counteract the typically cliché portraits of the homeless.