fall 1994 - summer 1995 exhibition program

Return and Exile: Sylvia Plachy's Photographs from Central Europe and Susan Rubin Suleiman's Budapest Diary
September 16– November 6, 1994
Rubin Suleiman and Sylvia Plachy were featured together in an exhibition that explored the experience of an exile returning to her native homeland. The two left Hungary in 1949 and 1956, respectively seeking personal and political freedom in the United States. Years later they both returned to Hungary, each recording the memories, emotions and thoughts connected with the country of their youth, Suleiman with words and Plachy with photographs.

Wendy Ewald: Retratos y Suenos/Portraits and Dreams: Photographs by Mexican Children
November 18 January 8, 1994
Wendy Ewald, a photographer and educator who has worked with children in Canada, Appalachia, Columbia, and South Africa, taught her Latin students how to operate a Polaroid camera and encouraged them to use the medium as a means of expressing their lives and dreams. The exhibition provides a glimpse into how children represent their own lives through images. Part of Ewald's task was to instruct the children about seeing in a different way: through the camera. With text in both English and Spanish, the exhibition was co-curated by Arthur Ollman from the Museum of Photographic Arts and Wendy Ewald.

The Stuff of Dreams: Photographs of Older Women by Elise Mitchell Sanford and Panoramic Pinhole Photographs by Craig Barber
November 18 January 8, 1994
In this exhibition, which was featured concurrently with Retratos y Suenos, Elise Mitchell Sanford explored female aging in a series of poignant and humorous images that recreated of famous portraits of women. Craig Barber, who photographed urban and rural landscapes with a panoramic pinhole camera, coupled traditional modes of imaging with a romantic platinum printing process.

Shadowy Evidence: The Photography of Edward S. Curtis and His Contemporaries
January 12 – March 5, 1995
This traveling exhibition curated by Rod Slemmons, then of the Seattle Art Museum, included a wide range of images that emphasized the upheaval and complex synthesis of acculturation and tradition that characterized Native American life between 1890 and 1930. Due to the stylistic conventions of photography at the time, Curtis' images were often inaccurate cultural depictions that tell as much about the nature of white culture as they indicate about native culture.

Photographs from a Pilgrim's Place by Kevin Bubriski
January 12 – March 5, 1995
Kevin Bubriski, whose work was the subject of the monograph, Portrait of Nepal, first began visiting this area in 1975. Since then, he has photographed in India, Nepal, and Tibet. Using a large format camera, he documented people and lands with a richly sensitive and informed approach.

Bela Kalman: A Life in Photography

March 16 – April 14, 1995
The exhibition included classic images from the Hungarian ballet and theater, produced in the photographer's centrally-located Budapest Studio, Foto Kalman , during the 1940s and 1950s. This retrospective of Kalman's career also included portraits of artists and politicians.

Matthias Leupold: Fahnenappell and Gartenlaube
March 16 – April 14, 1995
Fahnenappell (Flag Raising Ceremony) and Gartenlaube (Photographs for Devotees in Remembrance of an Illustrated Family Magazine) were two photographic series from Matthias Leupold, a contemporary artist from the former East Germany. With props and actors, he restaged the subjects of paintings and sculptures that were originally featured in the Third German Art Exhibition held in Dresden in 1953. He also recreated images from an illustrated magazine for women that revealed the visual rhetoric employed in photographs of women's social activities.

Between Spectacle and Silence: The Holocaust in Contemporary Photography
April 27 – June 18, 1995
The main gallery of the PRC was used to house works that viscerally transformed the space into one that communicated the continued emotional presence of the Holocaust. The exhibition consisted of both photographic and multi-media work by artists such as Joseph Biel, Richard Kraft, Aharon Gluska, Barbara Rose Haum, Melissa Gould, and Tatana Kellner.

The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning

April 27 – June 18, 1995
Curated by historian James Young, The Texture of Memory featured photographs and archival material that focused on a study of memorial sites and monuments. Through documents of memorial architecture, including sculptures and museums in Poland, Germany, Israel, and the United States, Young critiqued the historical, cultural and aesthetic aspects of these sites. This exhibition was shown in conjunction with Between Spectacle and Silence: The Holocaust in Contemporary Photography.