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ART NOW 2016
NEW DIRECTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY
APRIL 1 to may 14 | 117 Gallery
See hours and location of the 117 Gallery
Read review by Michael H. Hodges, The Detroit News
[hr]ART NOW: PHOTOGRAPHY is the second annual exhibition in the Ann Arbor Art Center’s Art Now Series. Each year, on a rotating basis, the AAAC will present a media-focused exhibition as part of the series. We are pleased to present this year’s exhibit which features innovative work in photography.
Contemporary photography in America is at an exciting and transitory moment. Since the advent of digital photography, the medium has continued to shapeshift into an increasingly inclusive art form. It has been estimated that around 1.4 billion photographs are taken every day, and even more “photographs” can be created by using scanners or creating photographic elements in digital software.
Some photographic artists continue to use photography in traditional ways: to capture and record the actual world. From the most news-worthy events to the smallest domestic moments, the strength of these images is reliant on the perceptiveness and timeliness of the photographers making them. Other photographic artists create complicated digital collages that bear many similarities to painting. By removing the necessity of photography to show the thing itself, these artists can create constructed scenes within a photograph that never existed in the physical world. To complicate the medium further, the last several decades have produced a resurgence of photographs created through historic processes like cyanotype and wet collodian. Defining what photography is and what a photograph looks like has never been more challenging.
While the world is currently experiencing an overflow of photographic images, what makes a photograph successful has stayed relatively unchanged. ART NOW: PHOTOGRAPHY will highlight photographic artists that are able to use the world as a raw material to communicate their own visions and experiences. While the processes may vary significantly, this exhibition will highlight innovative artists working in photography whose practices shapes what Photography is in 2016.
Juror
This year’s juror is Millee Tibbs.
Millee Tibbs is a visual artist residing in Detroit, MI. Her work has been shown throughout the United States and Latin America, including solo exhibitions at Blue Sky Gallery – Oregon Center for Photographic Arts, Notre Dame University, the University of Massachusetts (Lowell), La Patronal Espacio Proyecto (Buenos Aires), and El Centro Cultural de España (Santo Domingo). Recently, she was included in “After Ansel Adams” (Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego), and “America in View: Landscape Photography: 1865 to Now, (RISD Museum, Providence). Tibbs’ work is held in the permanent collections of the RISD Museum, the Portland Art Museum, and in the Midwest Project at the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago). She has won numerous awards including studio residencies at the MacDowell Colony, VCCA, Jentel, the Santa Fe Art Institute, and LPEP in Buenos Aires; as well as Puffin Foundation West and ISE Cultural Foundation grants. Tibbs is currently an Assistant Professor at Wayne State University.
Featured artists
Jim Aho • Christine Atkinson • Philip Augustin • Janet Baugher • Cecilia Borgenstam • Seder Burns • Lorraine Castillo • Brittney Denham • Alexander Diaz • Jennifer Eason • Steven Edson • Sean Fox • Marco Garabello • Phil Gilchrist • Juan Giraldo • Sarah Grew • Richard Haley • Christian Hendricks • Lori Hepner • Ethan Jones • Lori Kella • Horace Kerr II • Dean Kessmann • Chrissy LaMaster • Stephanie Lehr • Wen Hang Lin • Matthew Moore • Sarah Palmeri •David Quinn • Chris Ridgway • John Sanderson • Lisa Shaw • Harry Umen • Tracy Wascom • Christina Washington
Calendar
Awards
Best of Show – Janet Gallup Award $500
Second Place – $200
Third Place – $100
Two Honorable Mentions
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CURRENT EXHIBITION IN THE AQUARIUM GALLERY
Scale Invariance by Joshua Mason and Brittany Stecker-Mason
Location: Ashley Street, near the intersection with Liberty, in downtown Ann Arbor
Learn more about Scale Invariance here
