July 14–August 17, 2017 Artist Statements
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ARTIST STATEMENTS JULY 14–AUGUST 17, 2017 Aperture Summer Open is an annual open-submission exhibition at The Aperture Foundation’s gallery that features a wide variety of work Curated by For Freedoms, the 2017 drawn from members of our photographic community. Selected annually by a prominent curator or editor, the exhibition seeks to reveal and report on critical themes and trends driving international Aperture Summer Open exhibition, contemporary photographic practice. The exhibition opens the doors of the foundation to all photographers, both well- and lesser- On Freedom, offers a photographic known, as it fosters and promotes new ideas and talents. Aperture Foundation would like to thank Wyatt Gallery, Taylor response to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Brock, Eric Gottesman, Hank Willis Thomas, and Michelle Woo of For Freedoms for all of their hard work and dedication during the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, curation of the 2017 Aperture Summer Open. freedom of religion, freedom from Participants Demetris Koilalous want, and freedom from fear. Marta Kosiorek Myriam Abdelaziz Holly Lynton Inbal Abergil Francesca Magnani Susan Barnett Marc McAndrews The photographers and image-makers selected for inclusion each Claire Beckett Mary Beth Meehan address these issues in their work in varying ways. By bringing Lisa K. Blatt Noritaka Minami Corinne May Botz Sam O’Neill them together, we aim to open up a dialogue about the nature and Xavi Bou Mike Osborne Jean-Christian Bourcart Joaquin Palting necessity of political action, the language and means by which Jenny Brover Ke Peng we critique and produce avenues for sustainable change, and the Gary Burnley Brittany M. Powell Jasmine Clark Hector Rene relationship of photography to these issues. Debi Cornwall Jordan Reznick Marcus DeSieno Shane Rocheleau and Maureen Drennan Brian Ulrich In the hands of some of the photographers presented in this Jess T. Dugan Daniel Evan Rodriguez Argus Paul Estabrook Phil Roeder exhibition, the camera serves as a mirror, reflecting on the stark Dan Farnum David Rothenberg limitations that make social inequality visible. In others, the camera Mike Fernandez Mara Sánchez-Renero Ashley Gates Ben Schonberger serves as a tool of liberation—for the body and the mind, and from Gigi Gatewood Jay Turner Frey Seawell personal and ecological danger, social constructs, and political Kris Graves Daniel Shea and Stanley Matthew Hamon Wolukau-Wanambwa limitations. The selection demonstrates how the democratic nature Daesha Devón Harris Danna Singer Jon Henry Angie Smith of photography can serve as a vehicle for diverse perspectives Perri Hofmann Steven Trent Smith to visualize social problems, spark dialogue, and transform Lili Holzer-Glier Allison Stewart Michael Joseph Jared Thorne assumptions. For many, freedom may be an illusion, but the Stephen Joyce Millee Tibbs photographers here are committed to mapping new aspects of this Rhea Karam Sandra Chen Weinstein KevinCharityFair Harm Weistra critical terrain—identifying a trail, pointing out dangers along the Lali Khalid Emily Yang way—and ever aiming toward the light. —For Freedoms DEBI CORNWALL MARCUS DESIENO BEYOND GITMO SURVEILLANCE LANDSCAPES In the fifteen years since the U.S. Naval Station in Guantánamo Bay, In our increasingly intrusive electronic culture, how do we delineate Cuba (“Gitmo”) opened its first offshore “War on Terror” prisons, the boundaries between public and private? Surveillance Landscapes 780 Muslim men have been held there, the vast majority without charge is a body of work that interrogates how surveillance technology has or trial of any kind; 41 remain as, essentially, forever prisoners. In this changed our relationship to—and understanding of—landscape and series, Beyond Gitmo, I make collaborative environmental portraits place. These landscape photographs act as a larger metaphor for with fourteen men once held as accused terrorists, after they have the totalizing vision of the global surveillance state. To produce this been cleared and freed, in nine countries. Some returned home, but work, I hack or tap into surveillance cameras, CCTV feeds, and public others were transferred to third countries where they did not speak webcams in pursuit of the “classical” picturesque landscape and the the language. Each portrait replicates, in the free world, the military- sublime. The resulting visual product becomes dislocated from its imposed conditions for making photographs at Guantánamo Bay: no automated origins and leads to an investigation of land, of borders, faces are shown. Their bodies may be free, but the trauma remains. and power. The very act of surveying a site through these photographic JASMINE CLARK Guantánamo will always mark them. systems implies a dominating relationship between man and nature. AFTER EISENHOWER In my forthcoming book, Welcome to Camp America (Radius, 2017), DAESHA DEVÓN HARRIS I investigate the cost of freedom in the post-9/11 era by juxtaposing After Eisenhower is directly shaped by my upbringing in a conservative photographs, archival material, and first-person texts in Arabic JUST BEYOND THE RIVER military community in Twentynine Palms, California, My parents both and English. joined the United States Marines Corps at eighteen. The embedded My work explores the concept of “home” as it relates to the African framework of American patriotism is inseparable from and in service American experience, particularly in achieving the American Dream to the systemic cultural narrative that dark skin (one instance) is a and the realization of full, undefiled citizenship. The selections from negative. Protection of others, protection of the flag, and patriotism are Just Beyond the River are inspired by Negro Folklore, Slave Narratives the ideals that persist. Patriotism manifests in symbols, for example, and the Harlem Renaissance poets. This work aims to illuminate the National Anthem, the American flag, and the separation of church America’s enduring legacies of colonialism and systemic racism and state. As an African American female who identifies as queer, that define our nation’s history, while reiterating the central narrative my conflicted views of the military spurred my curiosity about its role that emerges from the referenced memoirs—the ongoing struggle in American life. Military is intertwined in the established patriotic, for Freedom. By combining powerful words with found images of national, and Christian identity. How is patriotism attained without any unidentified ancestors drifting through aquatic landscapes, this work familial military relationship or in a society that oppresses any aspect seeks to acknowledge the courage and sacrifice of our ancestors, of your identity? President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1961 Farewell reclaim their presence, and link them to a sense of place, especially Address warned about the implications of military power and its impact those who have been excluded and displaced. The bodies of water in on American culture. My work probes how American patriotic identity which I photograph are deeply significant to me both personally and manifests when its symbols are conflated with complex and polarizing historically. They include places where memories of joy, sorrow, love, issues such as religion, race, class, nationalism, and the Second loss, and liberation continue to reside. Amendment. The saturation of these oversimplified messages is disconcerting. They are meant to have clear meanings. However, these places and artifacts suggest more problematic truths about American life and our relationship to our military. Chain of Command, Chicago, 2015; from the series After Murat, Turkish German (Germany), Refugee Counselor 48.2946856, -113.2414781, 2015; from the series Surveillance I Tire So of Hearing People Say “Let Things Take Their Course,” Eisenhower. Archival pigment print Held: 4 years, 7 months, 22 days Landscapes. Archival pigment print of a still camera from a Fall 2015; from the series Just Beyond The River. Chromira print and Released: August 24, 2006; Charges: Never Filed surveillance camera gimlet in hardwood box with etched glass Containerdorf Refugee Housing, Bremen, Germany; from the series Beyond Gitmo. Digital C-Print NORITAKA MINAMI CALIFORNIA CITY, CALIFORNIA California City is a master-planned community in the Mojave Desert conceived by sociologist turned real estate developer Nathan Mendelsohn in 1958. It was envisioned as the next major metropolis in California in response to the population and economic growths that followed World War II. Mendelsohn and his associates carefully DEMETRIS KOILALOUS designed the layout of 187 square miles that is still technically the third largest city in the state in land size. Today, it exists as a place that has CAESURA; THE DURATION yet to meet the original ambition of its developer and the idyllic image that was promoted to the public through the media. These photographs OF A SIGH focus on the “Second Community” of California City, which is mostly JON HENRY uninhabited despite having a complex network of streets that stretch CAESURA is a collection of photographs about the transitory state of across the landscape. Despite having the foundation for a city in place, JESS T. DUGAN STRANGER FRUIT refugees and migrants entering Greece, after crossing the Aegean Sea there are no indications that this city will ever be realized in the future. on their way to Europe. EVERY BREATH WE DREW Stranger Fruit was created in response to the senseless murders of black men across the nation by