CINCINNATI, OH.- FotoFocus announced the opening week programming for the third edition of its month-long Biennial from October 1 - 31, 2016, in Cincinnati, Ohio. The opening week programming will run October 6 - 9 and will feature keynote lectures, talks and panel discussions with artists, curators, and collaborators, along with screenings and performances all focused around the Biennial's theme: Photography, the Undocument.
Through four days of talks and events, the opening program will seek to break apart assumptions about photography's documentary character, underpinned by an exploration of social, political and racial issues in which photography is employed as a tool of both evidence and artistic expression. Biennial guests will address these topics in tandem with the featured exhibitions curated by FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator Kevin Moore, including the first US solo museum show of Roe Ethridge's work at the Contemporary Arts Center and solo presentations by Zanele Muholi, Jackie Nickerson, and Robin Rhode at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. The group shows After Industry and New Slideshow feature a roster of defining figures of contemporary photography including Lewis Baltz, John Divola, Mark Ruwedel, Nan Goldin and William E. Jones among others. A Passport ticket is required to attend all events and can be purchased on the FotoFocus website www.fotofocusbiennial.org or at the door.
"Photography, the Undocument explores photography as an artistic mode of representation and, coincidentally, a tool of rhetoric and persuasion," said Kevin Moore. "By its very nature, photography raises political as well as philosophical questions: what do we assume to be real, what is true and how are different realities represented in photographs used for various purposes-for marketing, political influence and social activism? With more photos taken in 2015 than in the entire history of film photography, the agency and power of the photographer as a producer and distributor of unique and authentic visual material has once again shifted. The 2016 Biennial Program explores this phenomenon, examining how photography's different realities are employed as tools for social, political and racial awareness."
The programming is led by three headline events, along with panels that delve into exhibited and influential photography relating to the theme. The program will be opened by keynote lecturer Roxana Marcoci, Senior Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, who will discuss "The Re-Presentation of Louise Lawler's Work" on Thursday, October 6. Roe Ethridge's first solo museum exhibition Nearest Neighbor anchors the Biennial programming and is the subject of a panel on Friday, October 7, moderated by Kevin Moore, featuring the artist and a roster of collaborators - gallerists, designers, and models who have played an integral role in Ethridge's career to date. Presenter and exhibiting artist Zanele Muholi will be accompanied by a group of performers for an interdisciplinary performance and discussion on Saturday, October 8, that expands upon her solo exhibition, Personae, on view at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
Saturday's daytime programming establishes the curated exhibitions within a social and historical context. New Slideshow artist William E. Jones will explore buried history and the editorial process that public archives undergo in his talk "Rejected Images of the Farm Security Administration." Julian Cox, Chief Curator and Founding Curator of Photography, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, will be in conversation with artist Sheila Pree Bright, discussing "American Civil Rights Then and Now" as a historical preface to Zanele Muholi's keynote presentation.
The FotoFocus ArtHub: Satellite Project Space, located outside of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center on the banks of the Ohio River, is an interactive space for the community of Cincinnati to immerse themselves in the Biennial themes. It will house Wave Pool's extension of their exhibition The Peeled Eye. Investigating the mechanisms and outcomes of contemporary surveillance, the FotoFocus ArtHub presents an installation, video work and performance that distort and reimagine materials drawn from public archives, including surveillance footage, self-generating animation, and commercial video vignettes.
"FotoFocus is proud to nurture and support Cincinnati's art scene across institutions, galleries, and public arenas," said FotoFocus Executive Director Mary Ellen Goeke. "Through a timely and pertinent discussion around veracity in the photographic medium, particularly in this election year, the 2016 Biennial brings together curators, artists, art professionals and supporters from across the country and around the world to further the global dialogue about the agency and impact of contemporary photography."
