Unsuspending Disbelief
January 22 - March 13, 2016
Gallery View. Paul Graham, Double Rainbow, Donegal, Ireland, 2013, pigment print, Plexiglas; Senami, Wellington, New Zealand, 2011, chromogenic print, Plexiglas; Golden Pawn Shop, Bronx, New York, 2013, pigment print, Plexiglas. Photo by Clare Britt.
Reception: Fri, Jan 22, 6–8pm
Logan Center Gallery
Unsuspending Disbelief questions the notion of a straightforward relationship between the photograph, what it depicts, and what it “means.” The exhibition’s repeated images of rainbows are an analog to the values we invest in photography. Light phenomenon without inherent meaning, photographs are understood as representing what they picture. Their social, historical, political, and aesthetic codes are seemingly neutral, as their ubiquity gives rise to a veracity that is understood as resolute. Foregrounding the conventions and rhetoric of photography, the artists included in Unsuspending Disbelief undermine photography’s legitimization of hegemonic forms of desire and its naturalization of the “real.” Drawing on traditional categories of picture making, from portraits of a beloved, to documentary and architectural photography, this exhibition considers strategies of recontextualization that displace the authority of the camera’s gaze. The exhibition features the work of ten contemporary international artists, including Shumon Ahmed, Matthew Connors, Gauri Gill, Paul Graham, An-My Lê, Yamini Nayar, Thasnai Sethaseree, Tejal Shah, Mickalene Thomas, and Lidwien van de Ven.
Curated by Laura Letinsky, Professor in the Department of Visual Arts.
Presented by Logan Center Exhibitions with additional support provided by the Center of South Asian Studies (COSAS); Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry; Northwestern University; DoVA Open Practice Committee; The Arts Council, and The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.
RELATED PROGRAMMING
Unsuspending Disbelief: The Working Sessions
All sessions took place at the Gray Center Lab in Midway Studios.
Fri, Jan 15, 3:30pm
On the Ground: Renovating Social Institutions
with Thasnai Sethaseree, Faheem Majeed, Susan Meiselas, Dan Peterman and Hamza Walker followed by a reception
Mon, Jan 25, 3:30pm
The Form of Fear: Human Rights and Censorship in the Media
with Matthew Connors, Jonathan D. Katz, Genevieve Lakier, and Thasnai Sethaseree followed by a reception
Fri, Mar 4, 3:30pm
Bodies of Power and Desire for New Architecture
with Sarah Luna, Yamini Nayar, DN Rodowick, and Yesomi Umolu followed by a reception
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Shumon Ahmed is a visual artist who lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Aside from teaching photography at Pathshala, he explores the fusion between video, photography, and text, creating stories that are private, yet collective. His work has been previously exhibited in various galleries, festivals and screenings worldwide, notably featured as part of Asia’s biggest biennial photo festival, Chobi Mela V, Whitechapel Gallery in London, Fotomuseum in Winterthur, Switzerland, Dhaka Art Summit and with the support of the Samdani Art Foundation at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, as well as at a recent solo exhibition at Project88. Shumon won the Prudential Eye Award for Best Emerging Artist Using Photography in 2016.
Matt Connors is an artist and the Photography Department Chair at Massachusetts College of Art. For his recent project, DDPPRRKK, featured in the exhibition, Connors made photographs in North Korea. He received his BA in English Literature from the University of Chicago in 1998 and his MFA in Photography from Yale University in 2004. He has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague and the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York.
Gauri Gill is a photographer based in Delhi. She earned a BFA in Applied Art from the Delhi College of Art in India, a BFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design in New York City, and an MFA in Art from Stanford University in California. She has exhibited within India and internationally, including the Whitechapel Gallery, London; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. Her work is in the collections of prominent North American and Indian institutions, including the Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art in Washington, DC, National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland. In 2011, she was awarded the Grange Prize, Canada's foremost award for photography.
Paul Graham is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Graham is known for his pioneering use of color photography in the 1980’s, during a time when British photography was dominated by a traditional black-and-white aesthetic, revolutionized the genre of social documentary, forming a new school of British color photography with the artists such as Martin Parr, Richard Billingham, Simon Norfork, and Nick Waplington. Graham has exhibited extensively, with over 80 solos shows around the world, including exhibitions at Anthony Reynolds Gallery in London, Gallerie Les Filles du Calvaires in Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Graham is part of numerous public collections, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New Work, and the Arts Council of Great Britain, the British Council, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
An-My Lê is a contemporary artist who lives and works in New York. She holds a BAS and MS from Stanford University and an MFA from Yale University School of Art (1993). Recent solo exhibitions of her work include 29 Palms at Murray Guy, New York; Small Wars at PS1/MOMA Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York; and Vietnam at Scott Nichols Gallery, San Francisco. She is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship, and her work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; and Sackler Gallery, The Smithsonian, Washington DC.
Yamini Nayar is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York who has exhibited nationally and internationally. Nayar’s practice focuses on “how architecture translates history and memory in the present — suppressed narratives -- and ideas of the uncanny, legibility and difference.” Nayar uses methods of abstraction through piecing together found materials and constructing images that are transformative, ephemeral, and reminiscent of ruined histories. The architectural formations in the photographs become layered narratives that viewers are able to enter. Nayar has has exhibited her work in numerous institutions including the Guggenheim Museum, Saatchi Gallery, Queensland Art Gallery, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Cincinnati Art Museum, Queens Museum and United States Arts in Embassies.
Thasnai Sethaseree is a professor in the Department of Media Arts and Design at Chiang Mai University, Thailand. Sethaseree holds an MFA from the University of Chicago (‘00). Recently Sethaseree has exhibited at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as part of an exhibition curated by Rirkrit Tiravanija, featuring his project make it like home . . . anywhere? (2002–14), which draws on memories of home within Thai immigrant communities in Chicago. He has also shown at Yavuz Gallery in Singapore, Angkrit Gallery in Chiang Mai, Gallery Ver in Bangkok, Utopia Station at the 50th Venice Biennale, Si-Am Art Space in Bangkok, the Queens Museum of Art in New York, and the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery.
Tejal Shah is a contemporary artist based in Goa, India, who incorporates video, photography, performance, and installation into their work. Shah has had solo exhibitions internationally in India, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the United States. Shah’s work has also been exhibited at the Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and Documenta 13. Shah has a Bachelor of Arts in Photography from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia and spent a year as an exchange student at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Mickalene Thomas is an acclaimed contemporary artist who has exhibited internationally and nationally. She is currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Thomas is well-known for her use of mixed media and photography while drawing on aesthetics from her upbringing in 1970’s America. Thomas’ work examines black female selfhood, sexuality, often through art-historical references, such as Manet’s paintings. Thomas has exhibited her work in numerous institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, New York, Santa Monica Museum of Art, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, The Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., the National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C. and the La Conservera Contemporary Art Centre, Ceuti, Spain.
Lidwien van de Ven is an artist who live and works in Rotterdam and works in the realm of political and religious subjects. In her research she takes a rather journalistic approach, gathering material and delving into her subjects, though the work itself is not photojournalistic as such. Van de Ven’s presentations are made with monumental sized images brought together in carefully constructed installations. Lidwien has won several awards for her photographic work and installations, recently she received the Dolf Henkes prize 2014. Her work was shown at Museum Reina Sofia in Noorderlicht, Groningen, the Busan Biennale in South Korea, Comma 32, BloombergSPACE in London, For Be(com)ing Dutch at the Van Abbemuseum, she produced the installation Freedom of Expression. Documenta 12 in Kassel and the Sydney Biennale.
