Curatorial Projects
Let America
On view Online at The Photographic Resource Center Boston: July - September 2021
Exhibiting Artists:
Karl Baden, Edie Bresler, Bill Burke, Steven Dirado, Eliot Dudik, Kristen Joy Emack, David Hilliard, Michael Hintlian, Stella Johnson, Peter Kayafas, Brian McSwain, David Oxton, Harry Scales
Inspired by the poet Walt Whitman, curator Erin Carey’s Let America is a collection of photographs which celebrate the diversity of the American experience: the toil, the triumph, the work, the hope, the dreams. From Hollywood to rural Kentucky and the shores of the eastern seaboard, Let America introduces us to disparate realities which draw parallels between generations and geography. These photographers reminds us that the story of America is being written every day: while we are mowing the lawn, buying a lottery ticket, and falling sleep on a park bench. We are the living history, the living proof, the living hope that the experiment which is America is still underway:
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
— Langston Hughes “Let America be American Again”
Ripening Towards the Knife
On view Online at The Photographic Resource Center Boston: September - November 2020 Artist Reception & Talk: September 25, 2020
Ripening Towards the Knife is an exhibit which explores ideas of masculinity and friendship, featuring works by Alex Pigeon, Bryan Prendeville and Brian Christopher Sargent. Excerpts from projects by these artists are woven together into a overarching narrative describing the magical years which follow the coming-of-age, a time when young men must define the terms manhood and brotherhood for themselves. Each artist takes up that charge differently, revealing personal questions of identity and desire which play out in the shelter of intimate landscapes, from Sargent’s Eden-esque garden and Pigeon’s island sanctuary to the dusty streets of Prendeville’s hometown. While the story lines diverge, the personal expressions of love and fraternity amongst men and what it means to be a young man are broached with tenacity and tenderness, leaving us not with a singular definition but with a mosaic of possibility.
—E.Carey, September 2020
The Garner Center Exhibition Archive
As Curator and Gallery Director of the The Garner Center at New England School of Photography from 2008 to 2020, I had the privilege of working with more than one hundred artists from around the the globe, exhibiting diverse photographic projects addressing historic and contemporary issues. Below you’ll find a chronology of the exhibits I brought to fruition with the participation and collaboration of the artists listed. Together we mounted more than 70 solo shows, 12 group shows, 5 faculty shows and 30 student shows. I am grateful for the trust, generosity and vision of these talented people.
I continue to work as an independent curator in the Boston area and am excited to share updates on new curatorial projects as they unfold. Please check back as new and archived projects are added to the chronology!
Michael Hintlian - Something to Live For
Image Courtesy of the Artist
On view at The Garner Center: February & March 2020 Artist Reception: Feb. 11, 2020
An exhibition of Michael Hintlian’s recent photographic investigations of urban centers around the United States which focuses on questions of social landscape, how we are living in 2020. His imagery, unexpurgated and unapologetic, points a finger at a polarity of prosperity and despair which is ever present on our streets.
“...Hintlian is mindful of the social hierarchies and power dynamics present in the streets. Men and women in suits and slacks, teenagers, families and the homeless are presented equally, but their clothes, body language and expressions might offer clues to the struggles they might face. The public sphere is a stage for the theatre of gestures, faces and interactions, and Hintlian directs viewers through a drama of empathy: the business man is no more or less human than the homeless person. The real strength of this work will be in the long run: if Arbus, Winogrand or Frank are any guide, Hintlian will have created a profound historic document of the early 21st century. ”
Scott Alberg - Summaville
Image Courtesy of the Artist
On view at The Garner Center: October & November 2019 Artist Reception: Nov. 12, 2019
An excerpt from an a ten year project, Summaville investigates the collapse of a one of the largest planned communities in U.S. history outside of Las Vegas. The images date from the start of the Great Recession and Housing Collapse of 2008 to present day, outlining tales of waste, excess, loss and the possibility of renewal.
Camillo Ramirez - The Gulf
Image Courtesy of the Artist
On view at The Garner Center: September & October 2019 Artist Reception: Oct.1, 2019
Beginning in 2010, Ramirez’s project documents and the impact of the BP oil spill on Florid’a gulf coast. Images of landscape and animalia, both real and representational, reveal an underlying tension within the community which relies on an industry ultimately responsible for the destruction of the place itself.
Lindsey Beal, Cat Gwynn & Suzanne Revy - Daily Reveries
On view at The Garner Center: May 2019 Artist Reception: May 7, 2019
Three contemporary artists utilizing cell phone cameras to interpret daily life, expressing their vision through unique analog processes.
(Pictured L to R: Suzanne Revy, Cat Gwynn, Lindsey Beal)
“In the crush of everyday obligations, we can often ignore the mundane sights and sounds around us. Wouldn’t it be better to realize the fullness of our daily experiences? Call it “living in the moment” or “mindfulness”, but whatever you call it, it inexorably enriches our appreciation for life.”
Edie Bresler & Caleb Cole - Lost and Found
(On Left: Caleb Cole , On Right: Edie Bresler Image Courtesy of Edie Bresler)
On view at The Garner Center: February & March 2019 Artist Reception: Feb. 12, 2019
Working with found images and objects, Edie Bresler and Caleb Cole strip anonymous works of their vernacular in order to assert new narratives, arriving at both personal and collective histories sewn together by the strings of imagination and melancholy.
Rebecca Moseman - Into’ the Moon’s Room
Image Courtesy of the Artist
On view at The Garner Center: January & February 2019 Artist Reception: Jan. 8, 2019
"Oh, to go where the clouds sleep, where the moons dance, and the stars weep. I went into the moon's room, zoom. There were stars in his closet and clouds in his bed, and lying in the corner a black bird with her feathery black head."
An exquisite photographic story of a boy's honor and oath to his deceased aunt to carry on the story they created together about a black bird and the moon.
Jim Nickelson - Harmony of the Spheres
Image Courtesy of the Artist
On view at The Garner Center: November & December 2019 Artist Reception: Nov. 6, 2018
Harmony of the Spheres is a project comprised of multiple pieces, each being a unique visual performance using photographs of the night sky from a single night as raw materials. Nickelson’s photographs celebrate the union of painting, music, philosophy and photography in beautifully articulated abstract compositions which “delve into the realms of science and the cosmos.”
Alyssa Minahan - Trace
On view at The Garner Center: February & March 2018 Artist Reception: Feb. 20, 2018
“My work is an exploration of the liminal period in my sons’ lives between boyhood and adolescence, specifically their emotional and physical independence from me as their mother. I describe this complex and layered relationship by utilizing photographic materials, including unfixed gelatin silver paper and analog negatives, in non-traditional ways. The ephemeral nature of these objects mirror the feelings of wonder and loss I feel during this fleeting moment in our lives.”
Image Courtesy of the Artist
Image Courtesy of the Artist
Neal Rantoul - Iceland
On view at The Garner Center: January & February 2018 Artist Reception: Jan. 16, 2018
Artist Lecture: Jan.19th, 2018. 1:30pm in the event space
Twelve large-scale landscape images depict the majesty and mystery of ancient coastlines of Iceland along the Ring Road.
Maggie Meiners - Revisiting Rockwell
On view at The Garner Center: April & May 2017 Artist Reception: May 4, 2017
(Image Courtesy of the Artist and Anne Loucks Gallery)
Chicago artist Maggie Meiners reimagines Normal Rockwell’s paintings into large scale photo-collages, using familiar motifs to address contemporary issues.
“Meiners has a background in cultural anthropology, so before executing a Rockwell reboot, she wanted to take a deeper dive into the the social forces that informed Rockwell’s work. She began researching his practice and the political climate of his time, and realized that many of the topics that Rockwell depicted (parenting, generational divides, freedom of speech, race relations) could be tweaked to reflect contemporary culture.”
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
Jaime Permuth - Yonkeros
On view at The Garner Center: February & March 2017 Artist Reception: Feb. 23, 2017
“ Yonkeros” is a vernacular term for businesses that strip wrecked cars and sell them as scrap metal or for parts. The word is a Spanglish derivative of “junk”, conjugated grammatically to refer to people who engage in this line of work.
Yonkeros is a lyrical exploration of first world consumerism, waste, and obsolescence as they intersect with third world ingenuity and survivalist strategies in the no-man’s-land of Willets Point, Queens...
”
Molly Lamb- Ghost Stepping
On view at The Garner Center: January & February 2017 Artist Reception: Jan. 19, 2017
14 Photographs outline a personal narrative of loss and reconstruction, featuring intimate views of lost spaces, inherited objects and portraits of the past resurfacing.
“...
Poised across the invisible
space
that inevitably
separates
one from another
no matter how hard
we bind each other together
are the whispers –
caught silent across generations,
beneath the wooden floorboards
nailed and swollen solid
leaning toward the soil,
and in the pitched hot attics
of dust and spiders,
boxes and trunks –
startled by a breath of light
they refuse to mumble, utter, hum
what lips sealed
and buried in unmarked graves.”
(Image Courtesy of the Artist and Rock Webster Fine Art)
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
Dan Larkin- Old Cape Cod
On view at The Garner Center: November & December 2016 Artist Reception: Dec. 1, 2016
Ten large scale images of remote Cape Cod landscapes captured in the 80’s and 90’s reveal hidden sanctuaries imbued with magic and solitude.
Eduardo Rivera- 131: Scenes from Home
On view at The Garner Center: October & November 2016 Artist Reception: Oct. 13, 2016
“The first photographs that struck me were snapshots of my mother during the late 1960s after she and her family emigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico to Phoenix, Arizona. My mother sat me at the kitchen table and pulled out a shoebox containing stained Kodak prints. As I looked at places that I had never seen before, and relatives whose faces were unknown to me, she spoke of her childhood and the wondrous memories that were translated into the pictures. While gazing at a portrait of herself at ten years old, her voice tightened as she recalled the pain of being separated from her homeland of Mexico for a more prosperous America. As my mother ages, the details of these family stories shift but the pictures stay the same.
Influenced by the pleasures and terrors of home life in the American Southwest and the current political discourse concerning Mexican immigrants, I make collaborative photographs with my mother that depict fragments of the quotidian to suggest a very personal relationship to the borderlands—the margins where people make their lives.”
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
Alexandros Lambrovassilis- Ellinikon
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
On view at The Garner Center: April & May 2016 Artist Reception: May 4, 2016
This exhibit and Artist Talk were part of the 2016 Magenta Foundation Festival Programming
Collecting “ symbols of an era that has come to an end,” photographer Alexandros Lambrovassilis documents the recent decay of Greece’s national airport, Ellinikon. The establishment of the airport in the 1950’s, built largely through the efforts of Aristotle Onassis, was a symbol of Greece’s emergence in the modern world.
“The airport’s slow decline over the years, and sudden abandonment in the run-up to the Athens’ Olympics serves as an eerie metaphor for Greece, a country laid low by the financial crisis that followed of economic mismanagement during the years of plenty”
Michael Hintlian - Recent Work
On view at The Garner Center: March & April 2016 Artist Reception: Mar. 31, 2016
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
19 Photographs shot on excursions west-bound in major metropolis around the U.S. reveal an emerging new American psychology.
Tsar Fedorsky - A Light Under the Door
On view at The Garner Center: February & March 2016 Artist Reception: Mar. 3, 2016
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
“Sometimes I feel like a ghost, wandering endlessly. I feel apprehensive about my life and restless about my future. I often dream about life’s possibilities. My daily routine is punctuated with walks in the neighboring woods accompanied by my dog. We cover the same territory, paths and bushes. The dog seems to relish each moment, grounded in the present. My mind, however, is preoccupied by the past, the future or by people who aren’t with me. Then suddenly, I’ll detect a slight variation in the light. It might present itself as a shadow on a familiar tree branch or as a glimmer of light on the surface of a quarry. I am struck by the beauty of my immediate surroundings and become lost in the moment. This series attempts to give visual form to these emotional states. Focusing on the ephemeral, I am reminded of the elusive qualities of light, and life. Suspended between the past and present, I think about the choices I have made and contemplate the future.”
Sarah Malakoff - Interior Portraits
On view at The Garner Center: January & February 2016 Artist Reception: Feb. 4, 2016
(Image Courtesy of the Artist and Yezerski Gallery)
“For as long as I can remember, I have had a preoccupation with domestic interiors. My long-term photographic project looks at the ways we arrange our most intimate spaces. Our tastes, personalities, quirks and culture are expressed through our décor choices – sometimes intentionally, but often without realizing bits of our most authentic selves have seeped to the surface.
In this body of work, I look closely at objects we display within the home that reference history and culture. These items may speak to the ancestral lineage of the occupant or perhaps merely a desire to appear sophisticated or knowledgeable. Whether they are paintings, photographs, or sculptures of historical figures or events, documents or books, they point to a longing for connection to the past and an engagement with the world at large. They resonate, often humorously or uncannily, with the other objects and architecture that surround them. This collection of private spaces asks the viewer to imagine the people who inhabit them and their relationship to these histories.”
Fran Forman - The Escape Artist
On view at The Garner Center: April & May 2015 Artist Reception & Book Signing: April 9, 2015
“...I began to shuffle the prints around and envision certain themes; only then did the organization begin to make sense: Time Travel, Inventors of Absence, Defying Gravity, Imaginary Circus, and Escape Artists. These became the titles of the chapters within the over-arching theme of Escape.”
(Image Courtesy of the Artist and Pucker Gallery)
Brian Christopher Sargent - Notes from the Underground
On view at The Garner Center: February & March 2015 Artist Reception: March 27, 2015
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
Artist Brian Christopher Sargent uses a cell phone camera to capture daily images on his commute through the NYC subways capturing snippets of daily life. The resulting portraits address ideas of intimacy and how our inner lives can spill into the public sphere when no-one is looking… or are they?
Dayna Rochell- Holiday Park
On view at The Garner Center: November & December 2014 Artist Reception: Dec. 20, 2014
2014 Yousef Karsh Prize winner explores temporary American landscapes .
Keith Johnson - Celestial Navigation
On view at The Garner Center: February & March 2014 Artist Reception: Mar. 5th, 2014
Celestial Navigation is a large-scale photographic investigation which began as a critical response by the photographer to a painting by Rebecca Salter at British Art Center and grew into a suite of gridded images about the night sky. Keith Johnson’s interest turned towards what happens when a photograph of ordinary, regular, every day stuff takes on a different meaning, looks different and eventually transforms into another experience:
“My take is that the longer involvement allows for serendipity and image to enter into the experience both mine and the viewers. These pictures are about an AHA! Moment. I would see some surface and look at it for a while intrigued when the roof or the chrysanthemums or the snow sort of tugged on my coat tail and said “Hey you, pay attention.” I found myself saying, “OK I get it. And got to work.”
Suzanne Revy - To Venerate the Simple Days
On view at The Garner Center: January & February 2014 Artist Reception: Jan. 14, 2014
…a magical visual essay crafted by photographer Suzanne Revy on the joys of family and explorations of summer. Her images capture the sheer bliss of long days, imaginative play, and freedom. Her use of a toy camera draws out a surprisingly melancholic mood at times, revealing memories of continued traditions within a family when school is over and obligations fall away. Experiencing this work is akin to gazing upon a field of fireflies at dusk, a rare experience to warm the heart.
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
Phillip Jones
On view at The Garner Center: November & December 2013 Artist Reception: Nov.13, 2013
Image Courtesy of the Artist
Nationally exhibited artist Phillip Johnson presents a selection of night landscapes across American and European metropolis. Johnson focuses on fringe and transitional neighborhoods, documenting evolving skylines, subtly drawing attention to questions around humanity, land-use, gentrification and progress.
Thad Russell - Promised Land
On view at The Garner Center: April & May 2013 Artist Reception: Apr. 24, 2013
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
Promised Land is a quiet and curious investigation of the contemporary American landscape, “in all of its beauty, perversity and pathos.” Thad Russell has spent the last 10 years photographing from Las Vegas to the Central Valley of California, the Mojave Desert to Southern Florida, examining what he describes as “locations of the American Dream.” This poignant exhibit touches on issues of land use and resource management in the ever changing façade of the American landscape, exposing a dichotomy between the American myth and American reality.
Thad Russell is a graduate of Stanford University and The Rhode Island School of Design, where he received his M.F.A. His work has been published in notable publications such as the London Observer, Los Angeles Times Magazine and New York Magazine.
Dina Kantor - Finnish & Jewish
On view at The Garner Center: February & March 2013 Artist Reception: Mar..6, 2013
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
New York based photographer Dina Kantor investigates the ways photography contributes to the construction of identity and community, recording cultural signifiers and traditions of a small Jewish community enveloped in a gentile country with only two synagogues. In a nation of 5.3 million people, the photographer asks How do 1,500 Jews maintain their cultural identity?
Her portraits reveal a hybridized, modern family life where “our identities are no longer definable by a generic social stereotype of community, but by our unique experiences and backgrounds. “
Jerry Reed - Paperwork
On view at The Garner Center: January & February 2013 Artist Reception: Jan.16, 2013
English artist Jerry Reed presents a selection of works from his three year studio investigation of paper objects. Reed’s large format, abstract photographs focus on the relationship of shadow, line and light, resulting in the creation of a scaled experience of dimension and time.
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
Paul-Jude Guillaume - Never Let Me Go
On view at The Garner Center: November & December 2012 Artist Reception: Nov.14, 2012
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
A New Orleans native, Guillaume began to question the material photograph after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Left only with his grandmother’s heavily damaged photographic archive, he started to see its’ molded paper as representational. These moments seemingly erased - blurred faces, script notes worn, once vivid memories melted between Mississippi River water and aged glue – instead highlighted a communal experience; one in which those who experience loss are encouraged to erase memory. Conversely, Never Let Me Go: Memory, Loss, and the Archive re-appropriates the family memento, attempting to find blended commonalities among loss, and ultimately methods of memory permanence.
Elizabeth Clark Libert - Libert & Co.
On view at The Garner Center: February & March 2011 Artist Reception: Feb.29, 2011
“Libert & Company” is a photographic study of a financially and socially privileged New England family that I know well—it is my own. In the past I found myself hesitant to share photographs that evidence the “privileged” background that I grew up in, especially given the current state of the economy. This current body of work addresses my ambivalent attitude towards this aspect of my life. I often experience various emotions such as pride, embarrassment, guilt, and relief. With that in mind, I have started to photograph familial characters of this wealthy circle in a way that captures a certain, wavering insecurity – my projected insecurity.
The result is a series of images where discomfort and awkwardness are present. Sometimes this unease is evident in the subjects’ ambiguous facial expressions and gestures in relation to each other and their environment. In other situations, the characters display an obvious self-awareness and, at times, sense of entitlement. Much emphasis is placed on aesthetics, whether it be one’s own personal appearance or with external surroundings, such as home decorating. There exists a desire to not only fit in, but to impress and fulfill the high expectations set by prior generations. As the photographer and occasional subject of these images, I too embody these characteristics.” - E.C. Libert
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
Amy Theiss Giese - Concealed at first, at last I appear
On view at The Garner Center: November & December 2011 Artist Reception: Nov.30, 2011
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
“The large-scale, unique, silver gelatin skiagrams (Greek for “shadows written”) that I make are a direct recording of the shadow patterns in a room at night. They are created without a camera or an aperture. The project is an exploration of how the inherent properties of darkroom paper capture and hold elements of a specific time, place, and moment. The work also is about confounding the expectations of the viewer – that photographs are “of” something recognizable. Ultimately, the skiagrams are a play between light and dark, tangible and abstract, a physical object and the ephemerality of a moment.”