Via Kara Fohner, The Gaston Gazette
Thu, July 7, 2022
"Gaston County officials axed a social media post by the Gaston County Museum of Art and History that would have recognized Pride Month.
The decision came around a week before the county forced the museum to take down a photo of two men kissing, according to emails released by the county."
Related coverage here and here
The photograph was ordered removed from the Gaston County Museum exhibit "Into the Darkroom" photography, which, according to the museum, showcases "the evolution of photography, impacts of photography on human history, and highlights local photographers." It is now on exhibit at Monroe Gallery of Photography in the current exhibit "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism", on view through September 18, 2022
Friday, July 22, 5:30 PM (MDT)
In Person and Online
112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe, NM 87501
A Panel Discussion with David Butow and Nina Berman:
Threats to Photojournalism
On Occasion of Monroe's Gallery 20th Anniversary
For more information go here.
From a dingy motel room in the swing state of Michigan, to the Oval Office, BRINK chronicles the dynamics that unfolded during the 2016 presidential election and led, finally, to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. Photographer David Butow moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Washington, D.C. in 2017 to document what he knew would be a chaotic time in U.S. politics. “While I expected the incompetence, I underestimated the treachery,” he says in the book’s Endnotes.
“Why make a book of photographs from events that overwhelmed many of us in the last four years? We lived through history minute by minute, so much so that the gravitas of what transpired is apparent only when you step back and see how the whole saga unfolded. As revisionists seek to trivialize or downplay the events of 2016-21, it's critical to maintain a record of just how close the presidency of Donald Trump brought U.S. democracy to the brink of collapse.”
July 2, 2022
Hans Runesson's photograph is included in the current exhibition "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism", on view through September 18, 2022
View the full article in The Guardian here.
July 2, 2022
David Butow, March 15, 2022. Two of the millions of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, this woman and her son leave for Poland and a completely unpredictable future. © David Butow. Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography.
SANTA FE, NM.- Monroe Gallery of Photography opened a major exhibition celebrating the Gallery’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe. “Imagine a World Without Photojournalism” is a multi-photojournalist presentation of news events of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The exhibition will continue through September 18, 2022.
A special program with gallery photojournalists Nina Berman and David Butow will be held on Friday, July 22 at 5:30 PM, RSVP required, please contact the Gallery for information.
Imagine a world without photojournalism
Across America and throughout the world, photojournalists working to bring the world vital news have come under attack, often from authorities, governments, and groups using violence and repression as a form of censorship. Combined with deliberate misinformation creating public skepticism, the photojournalist’s mission of creating visual moments essential to understanding societal and political change may be threatened.
For 20 years, Monroe Gallery of Photography has presented exhibitions championing the critical work of photojournalists.
Photojournalism’s work and mission—one that can be put simply as documenting a news event through the medium of photographic images, has arguably become the most essential and enduring news messaging tool, and one that has gained only further traction and relevance in the 21st century.
On the occasion of Monroe Gallery of Photography’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe, the gallery presents an exhibition of photojournalists that they have exhibited throughout the years which span almost 100 years of history.
Photographs in the exhibition cover 20th- and 21st- century societal and political change, from the battles of World War II to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, from the frenzy of Presidential campaigns to the January 6 Insurrection on the United States Capitol. The exhibit includes a photograph from the 2019 Charlotte, North Carolina Gay Pride parade that the Gaston County manager ordered removed from a Gaston County museum exhibit on June 15, 2022.
Photographs in this exhibition are universally relevant; they reflect the past, the present, and the changing times. These unforgettable images are imbedded in our collective consciousness; they form a sort of shared visual heritage for the human race, a treasury of significant memories. Many of the photographs featured in this exhibition not only moved the public at the time of their publication, and continue to have an impact today, but set social and political changes in motion, transforming the way we live and think.
NINA BERMAN
Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and educator. Her wide-ranging work looks at American politics, militarism, post violence trauma and resistance. Her photographs and videos have been exhibited at more than 100 venues from the security walls of the Za'atari refugee camp to the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is the author of Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq, (2004) portraits and interviews with wounded American veterans, Homeland, (2008) an examination of the militarization of American life post September 11, and, An autobiography of Miss Wish (2017) a story told with a survivor of sexual violence which was shortlisted for both the Aperture and Arles book prizes. Additional fellowships, awards and grants include: the New York Foundation for the Arts, the World Press Photo Foundation, Pictures of the Year International, the Open Society Foundation, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship and the Aftermath Project. She is a Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she directs the photography program. She lives in her hometown of New York City.
DAVID BUTOW
David Butow is a freelance photojournalist whose projects and assignments have taken him to over two dozen countries including Afghanistan, Burma, Iraq, Peru, Yemen and Zimbabwe. His new book, BRINK, chronicles politics in the United States from the 2016 presidential election through the chaos of the Trump presidency, the turmoil of 2020 and concludes with the insurrection and its aftermath at the U.S, Capitol in January 2021.
Born in New York and raised in Dallas, he has a degree in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. After college he moved to Los Angeles and worked in newspapers before beginning a freelance career for magazines in the 1990's. From the mid-90's through the late-2000's he worked as a contract photographer for US News and World Report magazine covering social issues and news events such as post- 9/11 in New York, the Palestinian/Israeli Intifada, the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the 2019 Hong Kong protests, the funeral of Nelson Mandela, and the death of Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.
Most recently, his photographs from Ukraine and Ulvalde, Texas have been published in Politico, Time, and The New York Times
David's photographs have been shown in numerous exhibitions including the Asia Society NY, the United Nations NY and Visa Pour l'Image in Perpignan, France. They have also appeared in books and magazines worldwide.
June 29, 2022
IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT PHOTOJOURNALISM
Exhibit Celebrates Monroe Gallery's 20 Years in Santa Fe
Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to announce a major exhibition celebrating the Gallery’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe. Opening on Friday, July 1, “Imagine a World Without Photojournalism” is a multi-photojournalist presentation of news events of the 20th and 21st Centuries. A public reception will occur on Friday, July 1, from 5 – 7 pm. The exhibition will continue through September 18, 2022.
A special program with gallery photojournalists Nina Berman and David Butow will be held on Friday, July 22 at 5:30 PM, RSVP required, please contact the Gallery for information.
June 27, 2022
Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection: Navy CPO Graham Jackson as he Plays 'Goin' Home' on the accordion while President Franklin D. Roosevelt's body is carried from The Warm Springs Foundation, where he died suddenly of a stroke on April12, 1945 Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography
One of the proudest associations I have enjoyed in my career is my long time affiliation with the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe. The gallery represents historically important photojournalism, and Sid and Michelle Monroe are fierce advocates of the importance of photojournalism, and equally fierce defenders of the artists who create the work they show on their walls. They are also amongst the most knowledgeable people in this industry, steeped in the history, legends and lore of this art and craft.
On Friday, July 1, they launch an important exhibit. “Imagine a World Without Photojournalism,” which is a date that coincides with the gallery’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe. Their walls will simply vibrate with famous, important, provocative, challenging, memorable, sad and glorious slices of our life and times. The images enrich, enrage, dismay, and soothe the soul. Your eyes and heart will never be the same after seeing this collection of work.
Sid and Michelle are dear friends, and they know me well by now. Whenever I sell an image through the gallery, I never ask for the money. I leave it with them, building a bank account over time, at the gallery. When I have enough stashed to afford a print, I choose one. Such as CPO Jackson, above, in the banner photo. I have it on my wall, and see it every day.
Made by the formidable LIFE staffer Ed Clark, it depicts Navy CPO Graham Jackson as he plays “Goin’ Home” on the accordion while President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s body is carried from The Warm Springs Foundation, where he died suddenly of a stroke on April 12, 1945. According to accounts, he had a personal relationship with FDR, thus his grief, so poignantly manifest in this frame, is both about the loss of a leader, and a friend.
The picture is just as searing, relevant and heart wrenching today as it was the day Mr. Jackson was playing that accordion, and Ed Clark clicked a shutter button. Without the hearts and minds of photojournalists, a picture like this doesn’t exist. Without the photographers who are risking their lives in Ukraine, we don’t know and thus can’t feel the weight and horror of the madness raging there.
Photojournalists are often not welcome, as we show, in unflinching fashion, things many don’t want to see or recognize. But visual storytelling is more necessary than ever. As our country devolves into vengeful tribalism, and skepticism flourishes, nourished by unalloyed ignorance, I look at CPO Jackson’s face from long ago. There is truth in the tears.
June 25, 2022
Some photojournalists learn the same kind of automatic reaction. Ed Kashi is one of them.
View Ed Kashi's fine art prints here. Signed copies of "Abandoned Moments" are available from the Gallery.
By Kathaleen Roberts June 19, 2022
The Beatles, Miami 1964,” at a private residence after their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” (Courtesy of Bob Gomel)
SANTA FE – When Sidney and Michelle Monroe stepped into the workplace of the great photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt decades ago, they were more than intimidated.
“There’s a picture of Hitler and Mussolini shaking hands in his office,” Michelle Monroe said. “We’re not peers.
“Honestly, we could barely catch our breath, we were so star-struck.”
That meeting in New York’s Time-Life building would launch a career of exhibiting some of the most pioneering photojournalists in the country. Monroe Gallery will celebrate the glory days of Life magazine with about 40 images by such photographic luminaries as Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, Bob Gomel and Bill Ray through June 26.
Known as the father of photojournalism, Eisenstaedt is best recognized for his image of a sailor kissing a nurse in a dance-like dip during Times Square’s V-J celebration in 1945. When the Monroes approached him, he had never shown his work in a gallery before.
In 1963, Life assigned the photographer a photo essay on life in Paris.
“He didn’t know what he could do that Henri Cartier-Bresson hadn’t done,” Sidney Monroe said.
While he was walking the streets, Eisenstaedt spotted a playground with a puppet show of “St. George and the Dragon.” He crawled under the stage and began shooting the crowd from beneath the drape. The photographer captured the children in the audience, their facial expressions tumbling from delight into fear and horror.
“It’s almost timeless, aside from their clothing, it could be any time,” Sidney said. “It’s a great example of what a photographer does.”
Gomel was already in Miami to shoot the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight when his editors asked him to photograph the Beatles. The foursome had flown south to relax immediately after their 1964 “Ed Sullivan Show” debut. Gomel shot them sunbathing at a private home.
“The editor of Life was really interested in the world of pop culture,” Sidney said. “The Beatles would sell so many magazines.”
Carl Mydans had been captured by the invading Japanese when the Philippines fell during World War II. He was freed during a prisoner exchange in 1943.
In 1945, Mydans photographed the Japanese formal surrender on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri in front of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Mydans had also shot the famous image of MacArthur wading onto a Philippines beach.
“When news came of the formal surrender, it was bedlam,” Sidney Monroe said. Mydans approached a MacArthur aide to make sure he gained entry to the ship.
The photographer captured the iconic moment while he was straddling a cannon. As soon as he shot the photo, a sailor pulled him off.
“The U.S. officials came in wearing their day-to-day khakis, much to the displeasure of the Japanese,” Sidney Monroe said.
Bourke-White was the first photographer hired by Life.
When she photographed Mahatma Gandhi in 1946, he insisted she learn to spin in order to have an audience with him.
“He had no time to digress from his campaign to free India from British oppression,” Sidney said. “She needed him and he knew he needed her.”
Founded by Henry Luce, publisher of Time magazine, Life was long one of the most popular and imitated of American magazines, selling millions of copies a week. Published weekly from 1936 to 1972, it emphasized photography.
“They’re all in their very defining moments,” Sidney Monroe said. “The moments are in our heads because they’re part of our history.”
If you go
WHAT: “The LIFE Photographers”
WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe
WHEN: Through June 26
CONTACT: monroegallery.com, 505-992-0800
On episode 60 of the Nooze Hounds podcast, Ryan Pitkin talks to photojournalist Grant Baldwin about a story that made national headlines this week after one his photo of two men kissing was removed from an exhibit at the Gaston County Museum of Art & History at the request of Gaston County Manager Kim Eagle.
Charlotte photojournalist Grant Baldwin discusses how he found himself at the center of a story that made national headlines this week after a photo he took of two men kissing was removed from an exhibit at a Gaston County history museum.This photograph is included in the Monroe Gallery of Photography exhibit "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism" July 1 - September 18
Photographs in the exhibition cover 20th- and 21st- century societal and political change, from the battles of World War II to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, from the frenzy of Presidential campaigns to the January 6 Insurrection on the United States Capitol. The exhibit includes a photograph from the 2019 Charlotte, North Carolina Gay Pride parade that the Gaston County manager ordered removed from a Gaston County museum exhibit on June 15, 2022.
