The World as Seen by Harry Benson

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. In its more than ten years, Pier 24 Photography has exhibited many thousands of photographs, and thus hundreds of thousands of hypothetical words. Up until now, every show has begun with the Pilara Foundation Collection and expanded from there. Turning the Page is the first exhibition that does not feature works from our collection. Instead, it looks at and celebrates the photobook, a medium that has undergone its own renaissance parallel to our years in operation. Each of the galleries presents works from a distinct photobook, whether an iconic volume or a recent monograph. The content, sequence, and design of each selected book guided our approach to that particular installation, aiming for a thoughtful translation of its overall tone and intent. Ultimately, Turning the Page invites you to consider how the viewing context impacts our understanding of a photographic project. Among the classic works represented here are Robert Frank’s Les Américains (The Americans, 1958), Masahisa Fukase’s Karasu (Ravens, 1986), Larry Sultan’s Pictures from Home (1992), and Jim Goldberg’s Raised by Wolves (1995)—four photobooks that speak to the breadth of the medium across the second half of the twentieth century. Many consider The Americans so influential that every photobook since has been either in conversation with it or in rebellion against it. Ravens trades Frank’s restless questioning of the American dream for a dark, introspective processing of grief in the aftermath of Fukase’s divorce; both demonstrate how image sequencing can evoke feeling and narrative. Pictures from Home and Raised by Wolves build upon these precedents, combining image sequence, page layout, and text to tell powerful stories and reveal certain truths. Over the past twenty years, photobooks have become increasingly essential to many photographers, offering a distinctive medium for fully realizing their visions—often pushing the boundaries of the book form along the way. This approach to design and layout extends to how several of the featured photographers have installed works from their projects. Few artists have explored the photobook’s range as extensively as Rinko Kawauchi, whose Ametsuchi (2013) unifies book design with her project’s concept and visual content; her lyrical installation echoes the sequence and design within her book’s pages. Vasantha Yogananthan’s A Myth of Two Souls (2016–21) is a series of seven individual yet related photobooks, one for each chapter of the Hindu epic the Ramayana, upon which the project is loosely based. The design of Rose Marie Cromwell’s El Libro Supremo de la Suerte (2018) is based on Cuban charadas—small photocopied pamphlets that guide people in placing bets in Havana’s underground lottery by assigning numbers to everyday objects; Cromwell’s nonlinear approach to image sequencing is also informed by this random system. And in Wires Crossed (2023), Ed Templeton documents two decades of his life as a professional skateboarder in a dense, frenetic sequence evoking the look and feel of the skate world he helped create. These four photographers have conceived unique installations for Turning the Page that speak to the kind of engaging experiences they are known for creating when translating their works from page to wall. Pier 24 Photography has long believed in the photobook as an essential vehicle for both discovering new and exciting photographers, and looking deeply at the history of the medium. Additionally, we have contributed to the photobook community with our own publishing program. As with all of our shows, we hope you will see both familiar works that call out to you as old friends might, and unfamiliar photographers for you to encounter. It is this eye toward the future, with a humble respect for the past, that unifies the work on display. We hope you will join us as we turn the page together. PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: Richard Avedon | Libby Black | Rose Marie Cromwell | Rineke Dijkstra | Robert Frank | Masahisa Fukase | Jim Goldberg | Curran Hatleberg | Rinko Kawauchi | Baldwin Lee | Helen Levitt | Zanele Muholi | Cindy Sherman | Donavon Smallwood | Alec Soth | Larry Sultan | Ed Templeton | Vasantha Yogananthan Image: Rose Marie Cromwell, Martica, 2009–16, from the book El Libro Supremo de la Suerte. © Rose Marie Cromwell, courtesy the artist

Selected Artists: Leah Abrahams, Asiya Al. Sharabi, Federica Armstrong, Darryl Baird, Lowell Baumunk, Steve Bennett, Bonnie Blake, Marisa Brown, Lindsay Buchman, Xtine Burrough, Susan Kaufer Carey, Rebecca Chappelear, Victoria Crayhon, Jane Waggoner Deschner, Brian Fouhy, Leah Frances, Beth Galton, Amy Gaskin, Maryam (Nilou) Ghasempour Siahgaldeh, Rima Grad, Sharon Lee Hart, Charlotta Hauksdottir, Adriene Hughes, Charles Ingham, Candace Jahn, Lauren Johnson, Michael Joseph, Sherry Karver, Valerie Kim, Melissa Kreider, Judith G Levy, Annie Lopez, Jena Love, Jenny Lynn, Mara Magyarosi-Laytner, Ellen Mahaffy, Andy Mattern, Benita Mayo, Eric McCollum, Jenna Meacham, Julie Mihaly, Venessa Monokian, Kris Moore, Lisa Murray, Marni Myers, Lisa Nebenzahl, Cheryl Newman, Jackson Nichols, Charlotte Niel, Robert Nielsen, Rachel Nixon, Catherine Panebianco, Cyd Peroni, Mehregan Pezeshki, Jeff Phillips, Linda Plaisted, Wendy Ploger, Michael Pointer, Steve Prezant, Jennifer Pritchard, Michael Rainey, Brandon Ralph, Victor Ramos, David Richards, Susan Rosenberg Jones, Joel Rotenberg, Don Russell, Robin Salcido, Bill Saltzstein, Beth Sanders, Kris Sanford, Elizabeth Sanjuan, Deborah Saul, Angela Scardigno, Richard Schramm, Robert Schultz, Becca Screnock, Nicolo Sertorio, Rebecca Sexton Larson, Liz Albert and Shane VanOosterhout, Christine Siracusa, Paul Sisson, Jerry Takigawa, Dean Terasaki, Lacey Terrell, Cydney Topol, Hailey Trejo, Mark Troyer, Jim Turner, Brian Van de Wetering, Harry von Stark, Robert Weil, Francine Weiss, Andrea Wenglowskyj, Thomas Whitworth, Eric Williams, Jon Wollenhaupt, Ian Wright, Douglas Yates, Jennifer Zwick Jurors Statement The exhibition, Words & Pictures, is a fantastic representation of how artists are using two mediums to elevate their art making, The narratives featured in this exhibition range from personal and poignant to humorous and creative with words that accompany photographs and appear In and on photographs. Artists have incorporated text and symbols into their work since the beginning of time, but it was in the 1970’s when text and photography had a significant marriage and was at the forefront of visual culture and semiotic language. Artists such as Duane Michals, Sophie Calle, Jim Goldberg, and Carrie Mae Weems have used text to expand storytelling. Photography has returned to many of the methodologies created half a century ago, and it’s exciting to see the medium become so expansive. There are qualities that are universal to creating a compelling photograph. The work must have an intangible resonance and a sensitivity that links together images and ideas. The photographs have to be well crafted and have power, sometimes in their simplicity and sometimes in their complexity. Most importantly, the work must have authenticity—it has to convince the viewer that it has come from a genuine place, and it needs to persuade us that there is meaning and purpose behind the effort. The ubiquitousness of photography today requires creative approaches to all genres to shift the norms and reinvigorate the medium, as evidenced by the submissions to this exhibition. My Juror Selection Award goes to Charles Ingham. He submitted so many stellar images that it was hard to narrow it down. His work in both cinematic and intimate and he is a unique visual storyteller. For Honorable Mentions, I selected works by Angela Scardigno, Lindsay Buchman, Jackson Nichols – each artist elevating and expanding the visual experience with a particular visual persuasion. A big thank you to all who submitted—it was a pleasure to spent time with your work and though I selected a large number of images, there were still so many photographs that I wish I could have included. Aline Smithson

Joseph Bellows Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, Light Studies. This group show will open on December 7, 2024, and continue through February 1, 2025. The exhibition will feature vintage and contemporary black-and-white photographs that explore light's physical and metaphorical qualities. Tracing its fleeting nature or arresting its astonishing illumination, the pictures included transform their subjects in extraordinary ways, embodying Victor Hugo's pronouncement, "To love beauty is to see light." Artists included in the exhibition are Oscar Bailey, Lewis Baltz, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Barbara Blondeau, Walter Chappell, Linda Connor, Bevan Davies, Joanne Leonard, Phyllis Dearborn-Massar, Amanda Means, Abelardo Morell, Michael Mulno, Carlos Richardson, LeRoy Robbins, Melissa Shook, Charles Swedlund, Wayne Sorce, Roger Vail, Robert Walch, and Tom Zetterstrom.

Digital Capture: Southern California and the Pixel-Based Image World is an ambitious exhibition spanning six decades (1962–2020s) that investigates the history and creative uses of digital imaging technology, from the genesis of digital imaging in Southern California research laboratories during the Cold War and space race of the 1960s to the ubiquity of digital media in our contemporary world. The exhibition and accompanying publication narrate the ideological shifts that occurred as digital technologies were adopted for artistic ends. Conceptually organized into themes exploring issues of agency, representation, culpability, and connection, Digital Capture features more than 40 artists working across several technological, computing, and imaging media. Participating artists: Rebecca Allen, Refik Anadol, Natalie Bookchin, micha cárdenas, Liliana Conlisk Gallegos, Nonny de la Peña, John Divola, Dynasty Handbag, EPOCH, Elisa Giardina Papa, Goldin+Senneby, Valerie Green, Lucia Grossberger Morales, Maggie Hazen, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Huntrezz Janos, Eugene Lally, Brandon Lattu, Ahree Lee, David Maisel, Frank Malina, Judy Malloy and Cathy Marshall, Lynne Marsh, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Mobile Image (Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz), Lee Mullican, A. Michael Noll, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Charles O’Rear, Trevor Paglen, Nam June Paik, Sheila Pinkel, Sonya Rapoport, Marton Robinson, Dean Sameshima, Julia Scher, Ilene Segalove, Sonia Landy Sheridan, Barbara T. Smith, Christine Tamblyn, Penelope Umbrico, Stan VanDerBeek, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Gerardo Velazquez, Andrew Norman Wilson, Amir Zaki. Image: Micha Cárdenas and the Critical Realities Studio, Sin Sol / No Sun, 2020, screenshot of augmented reality app

Flower blooms at night invite us to delve into enchanting gardens after dark. Gardens require attention and care, slowly growing and evolving. The gardener must listen and negotiate the vast will and system of its universe. Each plant carries histories, symbolisms, mysteries, and mutations, emerging in these collages as emblems of adaptation. Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to present Night Gardens, a solo exhibition of works by Mary Mattingly on view from December 12, 2024 through February 7, 2025. Gardens produce food, medicine, fragrances of the earth—flowers, mulch, compost—textures, colors, and life. Birds, insects, and hidden movements stir in the dark, reminders that a garden is a world of its own. In this vibrant exhibition, Mattingly creates hyper-detailed images merging physical and digital realms into magical worlds. The twelve images in this exhibition are set in riparian zones where biological life responds to shifting water levels; the stories of these precious ecosystems go back to ancient times. In some myths, lotuses and water lilies rise from waters. Similarly, the thistle, both cursed and cherished, embodies resilience, even dispelling melancholy with its roots. Walking around Socrates Sculpture Park at twilight, the artist became inspired by the moonlit gardens. Mattingly took cuttings, scanned plants, painted and drew flowers, experimented with using fish tanks and mirrors, made flowers out of fabric, and used a digital program to further shape the subjects of her collages. Through these garden scenes, Mattingly “explores how disparate elements—ancient symbols, mythic blooms, evolving plants—come together to speak of survival, imagination, and transformation in a time of environmental upheaval. Night Gardens is an inquiry into the wild and shifting relationships between lifeforms, the self included.” In these images, Mattingly cultivates a garden that begins in reality and transforms into an ethereal myth of what could be. “The garden becomes a miniature world, echoing Foucault’s idea of a symbolic and even sacred enclosure—a universe in-between, where time and space, nature and artifice, history and future all overlap.” Mattingly’s work has been exhibited at locations including the International Center of Photography, the Seoul Art Center, the Bronx Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Museo National de Belles Artes de la Habana, and the Palais de Tokyo among other venues. Her writings were included in Nature, edited by Jeffrey Kastner in the Whitechapel Documents of Contemporary Art series. She is a recipient of support from the Guggenheim Foundation, A Blade of Grass, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Art Matters Foundation.

Please join us for this retrospective exhibition of works by internationally exhibited photographer, archivist, curator and Professor Emeritus, Lewis Watts. With a keen interest in both historical and contemporary representations of people in the African diaspora, this exhibition includes portraits of artists, activists, authors, and musicians along with his photographs of historical, archival objects, images from his best-selling book, Harlem of the West, as well as his documentary street photography. For more than fifty years, Watts' photography practice and research has been grounded by an interest in the culture, history, and migration of people of the African diaspora, beginning in the San Francisco Bay Area and the nation, but also in Europe and abroad. On opening night we'll have the pleasure of hearing Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Judy Walgren in conversation with renowned photographer Lewis Watts. Not to be missed! Lewis Watts is a photographer, archivist/curator and Professor Emeritus of Art at UC Santa Cruz where he taught for 14 years. Before that he taught in the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley. His research and artwork centers around the “cultural landscape” primarily in communities in the African Diaspora. He is a documentary photographer and he also examines the archive of 19th and 20th Century African American Literature and ephemera. He is the co- author of Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era (Heyday Books Berkeley 2020), New Orleans Suite: Music and Culture inTransition (UC Press 2013) and Portraits (Edition One Press, Berkeley 2020). His work has been exhibited at and/or is in the collections of The Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University (Seize the Time), Staatiche Kunstammiunger, Dresden Germany, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art: University of Oregon, Autograph London, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Citè de La Musique, Paris France, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, The Oakland Museum of California, The Neuberger museum of Art, Purchase NY, The Amistad Center for Art and Culture, Hartford, Conn, Light Work, Syracuse NY, The Paul Sack Collection, San Francisco, The McEvoy Foundation, San Francisco among others. He is currently working on the following photographic projects: “Charleston and the LowCountry” for the International African American Museum in Charleston South Carolina, as well as the long-term projects “Portraits of Black Creatives," and "Effects of Migration throughout America, Europe,the Middle East and Africa." Judy Walgren is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, photographer, photo editor, curator and chair of the Photography Department at Foothill College in Los Altos, California. Walgren teaches courses that range from introduction to photography through the capstone portfolio class. She also curates six exhibitions for two galleries located on the Foothill campus and produces 15 artist talks each academic year. Before coming to Foothill, she served as the associate director for the Michigan State University School of Journalism, teaching courses in beginning and advanced visual storytelling, documentary photography, 360-degree video, among others. During her professional career, she led the photography team at the San Francisco Chronicle and was a member of visual teams at The Dallas Morning News, The Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post, where she focused on documenting human rights abuses against minoritized communities. Walgren's creative research unpacks the semiotics found within visual archives and explores methods for collaborative and community-engaged visual storytelling.

Consuelo Kanaga: Catch the Spirit presents the first West Coast retrospective on the work of this critical yet overlooked figure in the history of modern photography. A bicoastal artist between San Francisco and New York, Consuelo Kanaga was one of the first women to become a staff photojournalist at a major newspaper — The San Francisco Chronicle — in the 1910s. Over the course of six decades, Kanaga championed the artistic value of photography and documented urgent social issues, from urban poverty and labor rights to racial terror and inequality. Her work remains as relevant today as it was during her own lifetime. Organized from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, this exhibition charts the artist’s vision, which spans pathbreaking photojournalism, modernist still lifes, and celebrated portraits of Black Americans. Image: Consuelo Kanaga, Kenneth Spencer, 1933 © Brooklyn Museum

Photographs by Roy DeCarava and Danny Lyon from the Sandor Family Collection As part of a generous gift of photographs to The Ringling from Richard and Ellen Sandor, we’ve received two significant portfolios: Twelve Photogravures by Roy DeCarava (American, 1919-2009) and Danny Lyon’s (American, born 1942) Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. These bodies of work by two of America’s most consequential photographers offer distinct but complementary expressions of Black life and the struggle for civil rights in the U.S. This exhibition is curated by Christopher Jones, Stanton B. and Nancy W. Kaplan Curator of Photography and Media Arts, Natalia Benavides, The Ringling's Coville Photography Intern and Jevon Brown, The Ringling's Eleanor Merritt Fellow. Image: Danny Lyon, American, born 1942, Cairo, IL, 1962: SNCC field secretary, later SNCC Chairman, now Congressman John Lewis, and others pray during a demonstration. from the portfolio Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement,1962-1964, printed 1996, Gelatin silver print, Gift of the Richard & Ellen Sandor Family Collection, 2023, 2023.36.3

On Saturday, November 23, 2024, PDNB Gallery will open a new exhibition celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the release of Neal Slavin’s book and photography series from the 1970’s, When Two or More are Gathered Together. The expanded edition includes an essay by Kevin Moore, along with new portraits. Neal started his series in the 1970’s, traveling around the United States in search of any organizations, clubs, and societies. Groups include Trekkies at a Star Trek convention, bodybuilders, Delorean car collectors, Sabrett Hot dog vendors and Miss America contestants lined up in their one-piece swimsuits. Slavin’s vibrant color photographs mark a shift in the art world of the 70’s. Previously, photography was mostly viewed as the classic black and white prints done by the masters. Color photography was popularized by the young artists of the 70’s like William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Larry Sultan and more. Color became part of the subject and photographs became more conceptual, adding more dimension than the typical beautiful landscape. Bold primary colors shine through in Neal’s photograph of the Sabrett Hot Dog Vendors. A quartet of men stand by their respective carts, in front of the K & P Distributor’s Sign. They are about to roll out into the streets of New York City, serving up the classic hot dog that tourists crave and business men grab for a quick lunch. Conventions provide the optimal opportunity for interesting groups, as seen in this 1970’s Star Trek Convention. Today this has morphed into a ComicCon convention. Slavin's mismatched group of young adults in handmade costumes is sure to charm even the non-Trekkie and will transport serious fans into the Captain Kirk time zone. Channel Swimmers depicts an eclectic group of all ages, still wearing their swim caps and goggles from their grueling swim. The photograph featured in this exhibition was taken with the 20 x 24 inch Polaroid camera. Slavin used this camera to document groups in Great Britain. A book was published on this project, The Britons, but not included in the new edition of When Two or More are Gathered Together. Slavin always asks the subjects to arrange themselves, allowing the group dynamics and natural hierarchies to become the main subject. This process creates a typology of sorts, like August Sander’s document of Germans in the early 20th century. Slavin’s portraits celebrate these found communities of shared interests, while provoking questions of the groups’ dynamic. Do they all look alike? Do they share similar beliefs? Which chose to blend into the group, and who is commanding attention? These portraits serve as a visual sociological study, presenting unity and individuality in one photograph. Neal Slavin will be in attendance on opening night, Saturday, November 23rd from 5 – 8pm. His book, When Two or More are Gathered Together, can be purchased in gallery or on the gallery’s website.

Chicana Photographers LA! features the work of five Chicana artists from Los Angeles who share common concerns about families, neighborhoods, sacred spaces, and body and identity politics. Featuring 41 photographs produced from the early 1980s to 2024, this exhibition considers domestic and environmental transformations occurring across the artists’ home turf, some cultural, demographic, and diasporic, others directly confronting the impact of gentrification on Chicanx communities. From Christina Fernandez’ suburban landscapes to Sandra de la Loza’s archaeological ruins of a beloved neighborhood to the situated biographical and autobiographical portraits by Laura Aguilar (1959–2018), Amina Cruz, and Star Montana, the vast cultural terrain of Southern California, is depicted and infused with family narratives, memory, and belonging. Image: Suburban Nightscape (Theo and Diego) #4, ​2023

Baldwin Lee was born in 1951 in Brooklyn, New York and was raised in Manhattan’s Chinatown. He studied photography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) with American photographer Minor White and received an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Art, where he studied with photojournalist Walker Evans. After becoming the first Director of the Photography Department at the University of Tennessee in 1982, Lee set out from Knoxville the following year with a 4 x 5 view camera on a 2,000 mile journey of self-discovery, photographing his adopted homeland – the American South. Lee’s artistic goal for the trip was to partially re-trace and re-photograph the 1930s-40s routes made across the South by his teacher and mentor Walker Evans. Unlike Evans’ iconic depression-era photographs, Lee would eventually focus on documenting Black Americans, many of whom were living in poverty on the fringes of society. As a Chinese-American, Lee described having a semi-pass to enter into Black spaces, allowing him to make intimate portraits of Black life. Over the next seven years Lee traveled thousands of miles on the back roads of the South, taking over 10,000 photographs – producing one of the most important visual documents of and about the American South in the past half century. With this work, Lee had found his primary subject, and credits his many years of working within Black communities throughout the South as having a “political” effect on his life and art. The compassion Lee felt for those he photographed resonates within his work. Although Lee’s 1980s photographs documenting the human condition of Southern Blacks were known and respected by his fellow photographers and collectors; until recently this work has remained largely unknown and under appreciated by the larger public. In the fall of 2022, Hunter’s Point Press published “Baldwin Lee,” a book of the artist’s 1980s Southern photographs. The book became an instant classic and the first edition sold out in less than a month. The book’s success led to solo exhibitions at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York City and Joseph Bellows Gallery in La Jolla, California. After nearly 40 years, Baldwin Lee is finally being recognized for his groundbreaking work. Baldwin Lee will feature a selection of over 40 gelatin silver prints culled from thousands of images Lee made across the South in the 1980s. Many of these photographs will be exhibited for the first time. The exhibition will include compelling portraits of Black Americans, as well as a collection of landscape and cityscape images that visually encapsulate the Reagan-era American South. Baldwin Lee will be on view at Ogden Museum of Southern Art October 5, 2024 through February 16, 2025. The exhibition is curated by Richard McCabe, Curator of Photography, Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Image: Untitled, ca. mid 1980s. © Baldwin Lee

Ghanaian photographer Gerald Annan-Forson portrays both political transformation and daily life in the African city during the last decades of the 20th century. This exhibition is only the second time his work has been shown in North America. His photographs tell the visual story of Ghana after it won independence from British imperial rule on March 6, 1957. Annan-Forson documents the changing landscape of Accra, the nation’s capital, with its subtle moods and evolving cosmopolitanisms. His compositional style, playful focus, and formal repetitions challenge photographic conventions and disrupt viewer expectations by centering quirky figures and offbeat moments. His commitment to both spectacular occasions and the quiet intimacies of Ghanaian life places his images in dialogue with the previous generation of independence-era African photographers such as Felicia Abban, James Barnor, and Malick Sidibé and anticipates the recent explosion of photographers across the continent who are experimenting with documentary storytelling.