Albin O. Kuhn Library GalleryUMBC GalleryUMBC Magazine features ERRANDS, the first in a series of online exhibits offered by the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery this spring. The artist, Zachary Z. Handler, will give a virtual artist’s talk for the public at noon on February 18. Read the article.
Virtual Artist’s Talk: Zachary Z. Handler
12:00 noon
February 18, 2021
Register here (via Webex)
In response to stay-at-home orders issued by the State of Maryland on March 30, 2020, Baltimore-based photographer Zachary Z. Handler created ERRANDS, a portrait series documenting the shared shelter-in-place experiences of people around the globe.
Handler conducts portrait sessions remotely via FaceTime, and motivated by a desire to provide care while maintaining connections, every session begins with a conversation. Handler then places the iPhone on which his subject appears in unique tableaux created within the confines of his home using everyday objects and materials close at hand. The resulting photographs capture the joy realized through discovering something remarkable in an ordinary place and through connecting with others despite social distancing. Each ERRANDS portrait depicts more than one person:
in addition to the sitter, the artist’s presence is reflected in the objects and environment in which he stages the photographs. Handler has, to date, photographed 275 people from locations near and far: from Baltimore to San Francisco, from Germany to India. Like the pandemic, the project is still unfolding.
Inspired by the mobile phones on which the series depends and the improvisational aspect of the sessions, this presentation references the children’s game of ‘telephone,’ in which a message is whispered from one participant to the next. Each photograph in this presentation is related to the one preceding and following it in some way, whether through color palette, subject’s gesture, or an object that repeats across frames. This chain of association invites the viewer to participate in the search for connections.
Public Program
Virtual Artist’s Talk: Zachary Z. Handler
12:00 noon
February 18, 2021
Register here (via Webex)
* Click images in gallery above to enlarge
Zachary Z. Handler is a photographer based in Baltimore, Maryland. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he was a Linehan Artist Scholar, in 2003 and a Master of Arts Administration from Columbia University Teachers College in 2005. In addition to his work as a visual artist, he has constructed a career where the fields of healthcare and art education intersect to provide community and access programs to individuals who are D/deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf-Blind. He has also taught arts education classes nationally and internationally to D/deaf and Hard of Hearing youth in foster care.
Behind the Scenes of ERRANDS
Inspiration & details from the set of Samuel’s portrait, from the series ERRANDS
Inspiration for Samuel’s portrait came from a scene in the 1977 Italian horror film Suspiria. The artist projected onto the set a slide modified through collage.
Constructing the set of Andy’s portrait, from the series ERRANDS
Andy, seen on an iPhone, chats with Handler as the artist places a Big Mac, carton of french fries, and large drink around the iPhone on which Andy appears. In a nod to artist Boo Ritson, the McDonald’s meal is covered in wet, dripping white paint.
Outtakes from Greg’s portrait session, from the series ERRANDS
The presentation of this exhibition and public programming is supported by an arts program grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2019, the Library Gallery received funding from UMBC’s Charlesmead Initiative to create an arts education program for K-8 Baltimore City youth. Curators began a collaborative project with museum educator Willa Banks to develop a curriculum emphasizing hands-on learning and engagement with original artworks through the gallery’s exhibition program and in the holdings of UMBC’s Special Collections.
During the spring 2019 semester, 90 students from Liberty Elementary and Frederick Elementary schools visited the gallery for an interactive tour of the exhibition Antonio McAfee: Through the Layers, Pt. 2 led by the gallery curators. Students enjoyed putting on 3D glasses to view McAfee’s work, saw rare nineteenth-century photographs from UMBC’s Special Collections that the artist manipulates in his digital photographs, and created collage portraits to take home with them. They shared what they learned over snacks, reflecting on what photographs can tell us about history and how portraits reveal (and conceal) personal identity.
Due to COVID-19, the final two class visits scheduled for March and April were canceled. Curators are now adapting the curriculum for the Spring 2021 semester.
January 27–March 13, 2020
Since 2011, Antonio McAfee has been making work influenced by historical portraiture of African Americans in the The Exhibition of American Negroes. Organized for the 1900 Paris World Exposition by W.E.B. Du Bois, the display functioned as a legislative, economic, and photographic survey of middle-class African Americans living in Georgia from 1850–1899. This ‘counter archive’ challenged racist assumptions steeped in pseudo-science, presenting proof of the vitality and upward social mobility of southern blacks. For his exhibition at UMBC, McAfee builds upon his earlier work to curate a selection of photographs from our archives that will be displayed alongside new works inspired by the historical images found in UMBC’s Special Collections.
Antonio McAfee is a photographer raised and based in Baltimore, MD. He received his BFA in Fine Art Photography from the Corcoran College of Art and Design, an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Arts and Culture Management from the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa). Recent exhibition venues include University of Maryland, College Park’s Stamp Gallery, George Washington University’s Gallery 102 (Washington, DC), Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), and the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD.)
Thursday, February 27, 2020
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Art, Race, and the Archive:
Antonio McAfee in Conversation with Shawn Michelle Smith
The presentation of this exhibition is supported by an arts program grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support comes from the Libby Kuhn Endowment Fund, as well as individual contributions.
August 28–December 18, 2019
Experimentalist: The Art of Robert W. Fichter presents the first retrospective of the artist’s career in over thirty years. Drawn from his archive at UMBC, the 55 works in this exhibition created between 1962 and 2006 highlight Fichter’s exploration of the human condition across photography, printmaking, and painting. Fichter employs shifting moods and mediums as well as wit, humor, and satire to deliver trenchant critiques of war, nuclear proliferation, and environmental disaster. Firmly rooting his expressive compositions in a strong sense of place—the surreal landscapes of his native Florida—Fichter presents a singular vision of humanity on the brink.
September 24, 5:00pm,
The Art of Robert W. Fichter:
Talks by Eileen Cowin, Adam Straus, and Tom Beck
The presentation of this exhibition is supported by an arts program grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support comes from the Libby Kuhn Endowment Fund, as well as individual contributions.
February 4 – May 23, 2019
El Sueño Americano/The American Dream features 59 photographs by Arizona-based artist Tom Kiefer depicting everyday objects carried by migrants detained after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Considered non-essential by U.S. Customs and Border Control and thus discarded, these personal belongings–from gloves to rosaries and wallets to water bottles–were valued by their owners for their utilitarian, spiritual, or sentimental value. In Kiefer’s graphically striking photographs, these items serve as traces of individual stories that humanize the current migrant crisis.
5:00 p.m.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Artist Talk with Tom Kiefer
Reception to follow
Free & open to the public
The presentation of this exhibition is supported by an arts program grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support comes from the Libby Kuhn Endowment Fund, as well as individual contributions.
August 29 – December 19, 2018
Depth of Field presents approximately one-hundred images acquired over the last ten years by UMBC’s Photography Collections through generous gifts from donors and artists. The photographs on view highlight the breadth and depth of the collection and illustrate the range of forms, technology, and artists that historically shaped the medium and are presently impacting its ongoing evolution.
Artists included:
Laurie Brown, Kristin Capp, Clarence Carvell, William Eggleston, Donna Ferrato, Robert Fichter, Todd Forsgren, Peggy Fox, Sally Gall, Ralph Gibson, Penny Harris, Sam Holden, Irina Ionesco, Walter Ioos, N. Jay Jaffee, Brian Jones, Nate Larson, Alen MacWeeney, Mary Ellen Mark, Dorothy Norman, David Seltzer, David Seymour, Steve Szabo, Barbara Traub, Peter Turnley, Robert Von Sternberg.
Installation Views
April 2 – May 25, 2018
The end of war does not mean peace. It is simply the end of death and destruction. Every story of war includes a chapter that almost always goes untold – the story of the aftermath, which day by day becomes the prologue to the future.
This exhibition presents images by over fifty photographers and is a ten-year retrospective of the work of the groundbreaking program The Aftermath Project, founded to help change the way media covers conflict.
4:00 p.m.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
War Is Only Half the Story:
Sara Terry, photojournalist & founder of The Aftermath Project
Photojournalist Sara Terry will discuss the constellation of issues facing communities following the “resolution” of armed conflict, focusing on the work of The Aftermath Project. A groundbreaking non-profit organization founded by Terry, The Aftermath Project seeks to change the way media covers conflict through grants awarded to working photographers, exhibitions, and educational outreach.
Free & open to the public
Support for the presentation of this exhibition at UMBC is provided by the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Friends of the Library & Gallery, the Libby Kuhn Endowment, and individual contributors.
War Is Only Half the Story is originated by The Aftermath Project, Los Angeles, and toured by Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions, Pasadena, California.
January 29 – March 18, 2018
Opportunities to view indigenous peoples through the eyes of indigenous photographers are rare and recent. This photographic exhibition features the work of indigenous artists from North America, Peru, Iraq, and New Zealand. Distinctive in its historical reach, the exhibition includes newly discovered 19th-century trailblazers, members of the next generation of emerging photographers, and well established contemporary practitioners.
Our People, Our Land, Our Images has been carefully constructed as a first person, indigenous account. Reflecting contemporary trends, the photographers and their subjects vary in style, from straightforward documentary accounts to aesthetically altered images combining overlays and collage. The variety found in the exhibition conveys the plurality of the indigenous voices and their concerns. The photographs are united, however, in how they convey their makers’ connections to the land, community, and traditions.
Ultimately, the multiplicity of perspectives represented by the exhibition and its texts sustains an open-ended experience that will actively engage audiences as they analyze how “the camera, in the hands of indigenous visionaries, becomes a tool or weapon that possesses the power to confront and deconstruct stereotypes, politics, and histories.” Our People, Our Land, Our Images provides insight into the variations in and history of bicultural identity. Further, the exhibition demonstrates the longevity and continuing vitality of native traditions of photography and answers the overdue and continuing need to expand the knowledge of indigenous self-presentation in photography.
6:00 p.m.
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Artist’s Talk: Shelley Niro
Niro, who received her MFA from the University of Western Ontario, is an award-winning multi-disciplinary artist and member of the Six Nations Reserve, Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawk.
August 30 – December 21, 2017
This exhibition presents images of the male body in contemporary photographs from the Mark Rice Collection. Engaging the complicated dynamics of looking at the male form, the myriad meanings, narratives, metaphors, mythologies, fears and celebrations of the male body are contemplated in the context of the history of art broadly, and post-Stonewall culture and the AIDS crisis specifically.
4:00 p.m.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Exhibition Talk: Dr. James Smalls, Professor, Visual Arts, UMBC
Dr. James Smalls will speak on The Mark Rice Collection and the Homoerotics of Photography after Stonewall.
Exibition Views
