Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography since 1970

The exhibition includes work by Gallery photographers Nina Berman and Ashley Gilbertson.

Via Harvard Art Museums

Devour the Land shines a light on the unexpected and often hidden consequences of militarism on habitats and well-being in the United States. Featuring approximately 160 photographs across 6 thematic groupings, the exhibition reveals the nationwide footprint of the U.S. military, the wide network of industries that support and supply its work, and the impacts of—and responses to—this activity.

How do photographs portray environmental damage that can be difficult to see, much less identify and measure? By posing such questions, the exhibition provides visitors a space to consider our current challenges and shared future. At the same time, the works on view also suggest how preparations for war and the aftermath can sometimes lead to surprising instances of ecological regeneration and change.

Following a trajectory that originates in the Civil War era, Devour the Land begins with the 1970s, a dynamic period for both environmental activism and photography. From there, the focus expands to our contemporary moment.

The 60 artists showcased in the exhibition bring a variety of practices and approaches to their work. They range from professional photographic artists and photojournalists to lesser known and emerging photographers; they include Robert Adams, Federica Armstrong, Nina Berman, Robert Del Tredici, Joshua Dudley Greer, Terry Evans, Lucas Foglia, Sharon Gilbert, Ashley Gilbertson, Peter Goin, David T. Hanson, Zig Jackson, Stacy Kranitz, Dorothy Marder, Susan Meiselas, Richard Misrach, Barbara Norfleet, Mark Power, Sheila Pree Bright, Jeff Rich, Sim Chi Yin, Sharon Stewart, Robert Toedter, Phil Underdown, and Will Wilson.

The majority of works on display are drawn from the Harvard Art Museums collections, including many recent acquisitions. Additional works are on loan from other Harvard repositories, North American public institutions, and private collections.

An illustrated catalogue, presenting a lively range of voices at the intersection of art, environmentalism, militarism, photography, and politics, accompanies the exhibition. Besides critical essays, nearly a hundred plates, and poems by Ed Roberson, the catalogue includes interviews with nine of the artists featured in the exhibition.

Organized by the Harvard Art Museums. Curated by Makeda Best, Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography, Harvard Art Museums.

This exhibition is made possible in part by the generosity of the Terra Foundation for American Art and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support for the project is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Publication Fund and the Rosenblatt Fund for Postwar American Art. Related programming is supported by the M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Series Endowment Fund. Modern and contemporary art programs at the Harvard Art Museums are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.

Online Opening Lecture: Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography since 1970

Speaker:  Makeda Best, Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography, Division of Modern and Contemporary Art

Date: Friday, September 17, 2021, 3:00pm

This talk will take place online via Zoom. Free admission, but registration is required. To register, please complete this online form.

Devour the Land explores the unknown and often hidden consequences of militarism on habitats and well-being in the United States. Featuring approximately 160 photographs across 7 thematic groupings, the exhibition reveals the nationwide footprint of the U.S. military, the wide network of industries that support and supply its work, and the impacts of—and responses to—this activity.

9/11 In Remembrance Exhibition

 

Santa Fe, NM -- Monroe Gallery of Photography announces an exhibition of photographs commemorating the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center that became known as 9/11. 

The twin towers design process started in 1965 and construction began in 1972. The twin towers were the tallest buildings in the world for a very short time. Photographs in the exhibit document the construction of the World Trade Center, its prominence in the skyline of Manhattan, and the devastation of September 11, 2001

View the exhibition here

Smithsonian Museum of American History Sept. 11 Photographic History Collection Acquisitions, 2011 - 2021 includes Gallery Photographers Nina Berman and Ashley Gilbertson

 

Via The Smithsonian Museum of American History

Sept. 11 Photographic History Collection Acquisitions, 2011 - 2021

Between 2011 and 2021, the Museum has added over 160 photographs to its Photographic History Collection. The photographs include Nina Berman, Ashley Gilbertson, Marco Grob, and Joanne Leonard, and Jo Tartt.

New York City-based photojournalist, filmmaker, and professor, Nina Berman’s 55 color photographs, 36 x 36-inches, sample three bodies of work previously published in magazines and books: Homeland (September 2001 to 2008), Marine Wedding of Marine Sgt. Tyler Ziegler and Renee Kline (2006, 2008), and Purple Hearts (2003-2004). 

A limited-edition portfolio, 3/3, by Ashley Gilbertson includes fourteen-14 X 24-inch gelatin silver prints in which the photographer has handwritten a description of the fallen young solider on the print. The photographs are from a book project, Bedrooms of the Fallen. Gilbertson, a member of VII Photo Agency, is frequently published in the The New York Times and other media platforms.

Swiss photographer Marco Grob’s seventeen, oversized and framed gelatin silver prints were commissioned by TIME magazine for his series, “Beyond 9/11: Portraits of Resilience, to honor the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001.” Among the sitters are activist Cindy Sheehan; now-Senator Tammy Duckworth; Former US Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; flight attendant Cristiana Jones, who is associated with the shoe-bomber flight; Ali Abbas, who was a victim of misdirected allied bombing in Baghdad; US Army Chaplin James Yee ministered to Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention camp; and the artists Paul Myoda and Julian Laverdiere, two of the artists who designed Tribute.

During his military service as an aerial gunner in Afghanistan from March 2013 to June 2013, Ed Drew produced tintypes. Ten of his photographs are portraits of his fellow Combat Rescue crew members.

Photographer and professor-emeritus at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Joanne Leonard clipped newspaper photographs and paired them classical paintings, famous photographs, and other images found in book publications in her series Newspaper Diary. Among the 129 -24 x 36-inch color are seventeen related to images of the middle East clipped from the New York Times and newspapers (2006, 2009, 2010-2015, 2018). Images not available digitally at this time.

Jo Tartt, photographer and former DC-based gallery owner, documented newspaper headlines, often in newspaper boxes in 49 Polaroid instant camera photographs, between March 19, 2003 as the US prepared to declare war on Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003.

ICP Event: Visualizing the War from Within: Post 9/11 Imagemaking with Nina Berman, Jennifer Karady, and Debi Cornwall

Nina Berman, Homeland Security Advisory Billboard, Country Club Hills, IL, 2008

from the Homeland series

Via ICP

 Visualizing the War from Within: Post 9/11 Imagemaking

September 13, 2021 (6PM – 7PM )

Get Tickets (Free)

Following the terrorist attack on September 1, 2001, as the United States occupied Afghanistan and later Iraq, many photographers embedded with U.S. forces to document the front-line action and America's war powers. Many of these images fit comfortably within the historic traditions of war photography depicting explosions, bloodshed, and the violence faced daily. Three American women chose another approach. Their photographic work, while individually unique, collectively questions the temporality and geographic boundaries of what constitutes war space.

Nina Berman, Jennifer Karady, and Debi Cornwall have been investigating the post-September 11 landscape by looking at the war within, including the militarization of civil society; the war economy; the war training and immersive war gaming, the physical and psychological toll on veterans; and war’s lasting environmental impact. For the first time this fall, these three acclaimed visual artists will unite to discuss visualizing the twenty-year aftermath of 9/11 in a conversation moderated by David Campany, ICP’s managing director of programs.

About the Program Format

This program will take place on Zoom. Those who register to attend will receive a confirmation email with a link located at the bottom of the email under ‘Important Information’ to join through a computer or mobile device.

We recommend participants download the Zoom app on their device prior to the program. Learn how to download the latest version of Zoom to your computer or mobile device.

If you do not receive the link by 4 PM on the day of the program or if you have questions about the online program, please contact: programs@icp.org.

Live closed captions are available at our online public programs.

Speaker Bio

Nina Berman (@nina_berman, www.ninaberman.com) is a documentary photographer and filmmaker whose work examines the militarization of American life and the aftermath of war and trauma. Exhibitions include: the Whitney Museum of American Art 2010 Biennial, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Portland Art Museum, the Wellcome Collection (UK), Dublin Contemporary and the Musée de la Photographie in Belgium. She is the author of Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq (Trolley, 2004), Homeland (Trolley, 2008), and An Autobiography of Miss Wish (Kehrer, 2017) which was shortlisted for the Rencontres d’Arles PhotoText and Paris Photo/Aperture book awards. Fellowships and grants include the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the Aftermath Project grant, Hasselblad, the Open Society Foundation and the War and Peace initiative at Columbia University. 

Jennifer Karady (@jennifer_karady, www.jenniferkarady.com) is an award-winning artist who works primarily in photography, film, and video and sound installation. Her acclaimed project, Soldiers' Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan, has been exhibited widely, including at the Palm Springs Art Museum, MASS MoCA, the University of Michigan, Berman Museum of Art, SF Camerawork, and University of Denver. Her work has been featured on PBS NewsHour and National Public Radio, in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Kunstbeeld, Polka, reviewed in Frieze, and published in books such as Suffering from Realness, Art and Agenda and Bending the Frame. Public collections include LACMA, San Francisco MOMA, The Albright Knox Gallery, Palm Springs Art Museum, and Smith College Museum of Art. Karady’s numerous residencies and awards include the Roman J. Witt Residency at the University of Michigan, the Francis Greenburger Fellowship for Mitigating Ethnic and Religious Conflict at Art Omi, MacDowell, Yaddo, The Headlands, and grants from New York State Council for the Arts, Compton Foundation, and Getty Images. Most recently, her short documentary film, Soldiers’ Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan: The Artist’s Process won the Humanitarian Award at the Fine Arts Film Festival, Honorable Mention at the International Fine Arts Film Festival and Karady was nominated for Best First-time Filmmaker at the GI Film Festival. 

Debi Cornwall (@debicornwall, www.debicornwall.com) is a conceptual documentary artist who returned to visual expression in 2014 after a 12-year career as a civil-rights lawyer. Marrying dark humor with structural critique, she uses still and moving images along with testimony and archival material to examine the performance of militarized American power in the post-9/11 era. Her photo books, Welcome to Camp America: Inside Guantánamo Bay (Radius, 2017) and Necessary Fictions (Radius, 2020) explore American “statecreated realities,” from the notorious offshore War on Terror prison and its global diaspora to the domestic military sites hosting immersive, realistic wargames. Debi’s work is exhibited internationally and has been profiled in Art in America, Hyperallergic, the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the British Journal of Photography, Polka, and European Photography Magazine. Honors include a NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship, a Leica Women Foto Project Award, and a Harpo Foundation Visual Artist grant; shortlists for the W. Eugene Smith Fund Memorial Grant, Tim Hetherington Trust Visionary Award, Paris Photo-Aperture First Photo Book Prize and Rencontres d’Arles Photo-Text Book Award; and nominations for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, ICP Infinity Award, and Baum Award for an Emerging American Photographer. 

Photography exhibit looks at the World Trade Center before and after 9/11

 

Via The Albuquerque Journal

By Kathaleen Roberts

September 5, 2021

Iconic symbols of the New York skyline, the World Trade Center gleamed like golden towers in the sunset, then smoked and fell with the devastation of 9/11.

Such was the cycle of life for what had been once the tallest buildings in the world.

“Greek Orthodox Church and Towers,” by Eric O’Connell, September 11, 2001

Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography is commemorating the 20th anniversary of that fateful day with “9/11 In Remembrance,” an exhibit of more than 20 images. The photographs document the design and building of the World Trade Center, its reign over the city skyline and its fall on that crisp September day.

World War II and lifestyle photographer Tony Vaccaro captured the towers during a 1979 sunset, as well as their architect, Minoru Yamasaki, in 1969.

Yamasaki’s preference for “aesthetic thinness” surfaced in the narrow spacing of the buildings’ windows and the vertical patterning created by aluminum alloy sheathing. When construction ended in 1976, it garnered scant praise, but the skyscrapers became symbolic of the Manhattan skyline.

When terrorists struck 25 years later, freelance photographer Eric O’Connell had just moved to New York from San Francisco. He saw the burning towers, heard a rumble and grabbed his cameras and ran toward the flames. He got to the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church as everything exploded around him. When the pounding stopped, he didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

O’Connell’s print shows both the towers and the church being swallowed by smoke and flames.

“He heard people yelling, ‘It’s coming down!’ and he dove into a lobby,” gallery co-owner Michelle Monroe said. “He couldn’t tell what was inside and what was outside. It looks like a horror movie.”

O’Connell also captured the chaos and confusion of people engulfed in ash and dust in “The group in dust, West Street, September 11, 2001.”

“The group in dust, Wall Street,” by Eric O’Connell, September 11.

“Firemen on the scene of the terrorist attack on World Trade Center,” by Shepard Sherbell, September 11, 2001.

Shepard Sherbell photographed a horrified trio of firemen watching the collapse.

“There were 8 million faces that looked like that for weeks afterward,” Sidney said.

Twin Towers in sunset, New York,” by Tony Vaccaro, 1979.

“They shut down all the traffic in Manhattan,” Michelle Monroe added. “They designated streets as one-way for emergency responders. New Yorkers would line the streets as the shifts changed.”

The crowd applauded, waved signs of support and gave out water bottles and flowers, echoing the pandemic’s spontaneous salutes to first responders. Black bunting draped every firehouse, honoring the firefighters who died.

“Every firehouse was a shrine,” Sidney Monroe said.

New Mexico’s Eric Draper photographed President George W. Bush on the phone in a Florida classroom when he learned of the attack. Draper was the president’s personal photographer.

As Deputy Assistant Dan Bartlett points to news footage of the World Trade Center, President George W. Bush gathers information about the attack Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, from a classroom at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla. Eric Draper  (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)

“He was reading books to a kindergarten class,” Sidney Monroe said. “They set up an office in one of the school rooms, then they whisked him out on Air Force One and flew around until they figured out what was going on.”

In their own words

As former New Yorkers, 20 years later Sidney and Michelle Monroe still struggle with the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.

Their gallery stood nine blocks north of what became Ground Zero. The National Guard cut off the neighborhood, closing their business. Their daughter was 9 years old.

“Our daughter was in school,” Sidney Monroe said. “They had a recess period before the school started. They saw the plane flying over their playground.”

The school staff rushed the children into some old fallout shelters. Afterward, Japanese school children sent them 1,000 teddy bears.

“Our daughter will never, never be the same,” Michelle Monroe said.

The fires were still burning when the gallery reopened.

“You’d look out the window and there would be ash falling,” Sidney Monroe said. “It was surreal.”

The couple decided to move to Santa Fe because of its status as either the second or third most active art market in the country, depending on the source.

“It’s a dreadful, dreadful anniversary, but there were so many people who ran into the mouth of hell,” Michelle Monroe said. “We don’t do anything that day. We just say, ‘Let’s get it over with.’ I don’t think anyone stopped crying for a couple of weeks.”

“Minoru Yamasaki, World Trade Center Architect,” by Tony Vaccaro, 1969

If you go

WHAT: “9/11 In Remembrance”

WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe

WHEN: Through Sept. 26

CONTACT: monroegallery.com, 505-992-0800

Eric O'Connell Discusses his 9/11 Photograph of the Greek Orthodox Church

 

Via Instagram

Photographer Eric O'Connell discusses his 9/11 photograph of the Greek Orthodox Church near the World Trade Center and its relationship to Tony Vaccaro's photograph of the World Trade Towers in Sunset, 1979

Tony Vaccaro

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Eric O'Connell (@ericoconnellphotographer)

View the exhibition 9/11: In Remembrance here

 

New local exhibition highlights the work of photojournalists on September 11

 

New York Firemen on scene of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001

Shepard Sherbell

Via The Santa Fe Reporter

September 1, 2021

By Riley Gardner

“This is the role they play”

New local exhibition highlights the work of photojournalists on September 11

Michelle and Sidney Monroe of Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography were a mere nine blocks north of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Back then, well before the Monroes moved to Santa Fe, their New York space was already highlighting the work of photojournalists around the world. Captivating images of joy, terror or all points in between is just part of the job, and you never know when they might flare into existence. Still, the aftermath of 9/11 stuck with the Monroes, and the gallery opens a new show this week about the history of the buildings themselves, as well as that most harrowing day in American history.

“I’m a New Yorker, and I remember [the towers] being built,” Sid tells SFR. “The exhibit traces that planning, construction, landscape and the aftermath of that day. It’s like a memory, a history of those buildings.”

The gallery is an extension of the Monroes’ long career in documenting photojournalism and the photographers who often risk their own lives to record history. 9/11: In Remembrance takes a look at that role but, beyond the national trauma, also attempts to capture how the World Trade Center represented American ingenuity in the 20th century.

“It’s definitive photojournalism,” Michelle explains. “We’ve been inspired to illustrate the calling of this career to understand history—and that’s our gallery mission.”

Photographers in the show include Tony Vaccaro, who catalogues a friendship with World Trade Center architect Minoru Yamasaki, and Eric O’Connell, who grabbed his cameras as the towers burned and caught crisp black and white images of the destruction.

“There are times when people become witnesses to history, and that changes you,” Sid explains. “We knew so many people that were lost, and people who lost others.”

As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the images of that fateful day may be seared into our collective consciousness forever. But what about the photographers themselves?

“This is the role they play,” Michelle says. “This is history.” 

9/11 In Remembrance: All day Friday, Sept. 3. Free. Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, (505) 992-0800. Exhibition continues through September 26, 2021

The Champ, The Beatles and a Tearful Girl: The Photography of Bob Gomel

The Beatles: John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Miami, February 1964 

© Bob Gomel

On August 14, Bob Gomel celebrated his 88th birthday. A few days later, Life.com published the wonderful feature below.

 Via Life.com

The photographs of Bob Gomel put you in a diner with Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, poolside with the Beatles, and high above the U.S. Capitol rotunda as John F. Kennedy lay in state.

Gomel plied his craft in the middle of history—not that he knew it at the time. “I had no idea the 60s would be so iconic,” Gomel, 88, said recently in a phone interview. “It seemed quite ordinary at the time, but looking back on it now, I realize how fortunate I was.”  -- continue with full article and image gallery

"On Aug. 20, 2018, one child staged a lone protest outside the Swedish Parliament, expecting to stay for three weeks...."

 

Adam Karls Johansson

Greta Thunberg's first school strike for Climate, outside the Swedish Parliament, August 20, 2018

Via The New York Times

August 19, 2021

"On Aug. 20, 2018, one child staged a lone protest outside the Swedish Parliament, expecting to stay for three weeks. Tomorrow we will mark three years since Greta Thunberg’s strike. Even earlier, brave young people from around the world spoke out about the climate crisis in their communities. And today, millions of children and young people have united in a movement with one voice, demanding that decision makers do the work necessary to save our planet from the unprecedented heat waves, massive floods and vast wildfires we are increasingly witnessing. Our protest will not end until the inaction does."

The Timeless Appeal of Tommie Smith, Who Knew a Podium Could Be a Site of Protest

 

1968 Olympics Black Power salute: Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos (right) raising gloved fists during the medal ceremony for the 200-meters at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, on October 16, 1968. Silver medalist Peter Norman of Australia (left) John Dominis/©The LIFE Picture Collection

Via The New York Times

August 6, 2021

"What happens when a person becomes a symbol? Smith and Carlos would both see their careers as athletes overshadowed by the moment. The years, decades really, after their defiant act brought struggle and sometimes suffering: hate mail and death threats, broken marriages and psychic pain. Two days after the medal ceremony, longtime Los Angeles Times sports columnist John Hall wrote that “Tommie Smith and John Carlos do a disservice to their race — the human race.” Even many of those that celebrated Smith and Carlos’s act did so under the mistaken belief that they had given the Black Panther salute — something that, for his part, Smith never intended.

What happens when a symbol becomes a person again? The last decade, a time of expanding awareness of racist violence and trauma in the United States, has prompted a dramatic reassessment of Smith. Once pilloried, he’s now lionized. People build statues of him. In 2019, the United States Olympic Committee, the same body that had suspended him from the Olympic team in 1968, inducted him into its Hall of Fame. The Smithsonian collected the clothes he wore on the medal stand: his singlet and his shorts, his track suit and his suede Puma cleats. And, in this new era of protest, a generation of athletes, many of whom claim Smith as a direct inspiration, are channeling the outsized attention that the public directs to sports toward urgent social and political concerns — police brutality, mental health, voting rights and more."