ATLANTA.- The High Museum of Art presents “New Photography,” an exhibition comprising 93 large-scale works by four contemporary photographers: Taryn Simon, Sze Tsung Leong, Ruth Dusseault and Angela West. The photographs will be presented in groupings according to the artists’ recent projects, and many will been shown for the first time in a museum setting. On view through October 1, the photographs provide an unmistakable identity for the places and the lives of the people that are their subjects. This exhibition is generously supported by Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., Inc.

“We hope this exhibition will excite and engage our audience by showing the richness of contemporary photography and the quality of work being produced by young artists,” stated the High’s Curator of Photography, Julian Cox. “These photographs demonstrate the power of the medium to characterize and portray the essence of a variety of environments, some of which may be familiar to our audience and some of which will be unknown.”

Taryn Simon, a New York City–based artist, will be exhibiting “Nonfiction,” which includes photographs that document international regions in turmoil, presented in a manner that is typically reserved for less controversial subjects. Simon’s formal choices—the use of dramatic lighting, and the calculated relationship between the subject and location—engage and challenge the viewer to confront contemporary social and political issues. Simon highlights leadership, architecture and individual lives in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Indonesia, Cuba and the United States. Many of these photographs were made while on assignment for the New York Times Magazine. Also included in the exhibition is a selection of photographs and a documentary from Simon’s critically acclaimed series, “The Innocents,” which presents the stories of individuals who served time in prison for violent crimes they did not commit.
“History Images” by Sze Tsung Leong will include 22 photographs that show the dramatic urban changes that have transformed cities in China. The economic revolution has resulted in the physical destruction of traditional neighborhoods and the rapid, mass construction of new urban environments. Leong states that “these photographs are of cites caught in the tenuous period after the end of one history and at the beginning of another history.” Photographed with a large-format view camera in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Xi’an, Fengdu and Pingyao, these highly detailed images portray the nationwide process of destroying built history and its replacement with a radically different urban reality. The subjects of these photographs, which include wide urban vistas, streetscapes, individual buildings and interiors, reveal the effects of urban upheaval both at the immense scale of the city and at the minute scale of individual spaces. Sze Tsung Leong is based in New York City.

Ruth Dusseault represents the first of two Atlanta-based artists in this exhibition. Her work in “Changing Places” consists of 23 photographs that show the arrival of Atlantic Station, a vital new urban space in the heart of midtown Atlanta spread over 138 acres—the largest urban redevelopment in the U.S. to date. Dusseault’s photographs record all phases of this two-billion-dollar project, beginning with demolition of the old Atlantic Steel Mill, continuing with granite blasting and the construction of sewers and parking garages, and ending with the new commercial and residential spaces.

In describing her work, Dusseault states, “My main reason for documenting this transformation is to avoid the history of the site existing as a ‘before and after’ picture, in which there is no longer an oral or living history—one that is newly interpreted with each retelling. I hope my photographs have sustained this history in the form of a living memory and initiated conversations about changing cities everywhere.”

“Angela West: Back Home” presents 12 photographs from an ongoing series devoted to the artist’s family and the landscape around her hometown of Dahlonega, Ga. In these pictures, West captures the essence of the scenery and flora of North Georgia, with a hint of mystery and unease. West says she hopes that her photographs “record the particularities of a specific place and time, and the way in which memory and guilt come together to create loyalty—which is sometimes confused as love.” Her richly realized color photographs balance an abiding affection for her family with a precise, nuanced and unsentimental observation of the Georgia landscape.