From the Director: Exploring important and timely issues
From the July/August 2022 George Eastman Museum bulletin
Photography and cinema have the power to connect us, to remind us of our shared humanity, and to explore important and timely concerns of our world. At the George Eastman Museum, we see great value in sharing photographs and films that are relevant, engaging, illuminating, and inclusive. A key part of our mission is to promote the work of artists and creators who are grappling with the same “here and now” as our communities and the world at large.
January 6, 2021. Chromogenic development print, 12 × 18 in. George Eastman Museum, purchase with funds
from the Rusitzky Photograph Endowment Fund. © Ashley Gilbertson
Throughout its history, our institution has collected and exhibited photographs and films that address timely and timeless topics. For example, we have recently acquired the powerful photograph (above) taken by Ashley Gilbertson, who bravely documented the events at the United States Capitol during the insurrection on January 6, 2021.
Our recent and forthcoming exhibitions provide further examples. Last fall, Joshua Rashaad McFadden: I Believe I’ll Run On debuted in our main galleries. The stunning early-career survey and its accompanying catalogue meditate on the Black experience, and particularly the experience of Black men. McFadden’s work is especially meaningful at a time when our country continues to wrestle with the long-term and everyday impacts of racism, hate crimes, and discrimination. We have acquired eight photographs included in the exhibition.
The exhibition lives on through the beautifully illustrated exhibition catalogue, which features an insightful essay by LaCharles Ward and an enlightening, in-depth conversation between Joshua Rashaad McFadden and Lyle Ashton Harris. We also hosted a virtual panel discussion on the topic of social justice and photography. This recorded talk is accessible on our YouTube channel and will remain relevant for viewing long after the exhibition ended its run in our galleries.
Opening on July 16 in our main galleries, Anastasia Samoylova: FloodZone speaks to the sobering realities we all face living in a time of climate change. The exhibition is filled with the artist’s alluring yet illusory photographs, many of which depict Miami, where a sought-after tropical climate drives the real estate market to continue to build upon land that is threatened by the rising sea level and increasingly frequent and severe storms. Samoylova’s work prompts us to consider how a changing climate threatens our modern built environment, as well as the seductive but deceptive advertising that in 2020 attracted greater net migration to Florida than any other state. Two of the FloodZone photographs have been added to our collection.
To complement the exhibition of Samoylova’s photographs, Eastman Museum curators worked with the artist to identify objects from the museum’s photography collection that depict floods and related disasters in the United States. These works demonstrate that catastrophic damage to people, property, and the land are not new — and neither is our persistent tendency to ignore the threats and to build and rebuild on manifestly vulnerable lands.
This fall, the new installation of photographs in our Collection Gallery will focus on images of war and conflict. Although the topics in this rotation of Selections from the Collection are, sadly, particularly relevant in our current moment, the curator of this exhibition has been planning it for years. The selected works, ranging from the Crimean War (1853–56) to the War in Afghanistan (2001–21), challenge us to consider how photography documents and disseminates information about war, and how the approach of photographers to recording war has shifted over time. We hope that these photographs — and the accompanying interpretative text — will provide perspectives and insights that help visitors to think critically about photographic history in relation to war and conflict, as well as the lives of those directly affected by such events.
Our exhibitions and programs enlighten and inform our audiences and, we hope, connect people and provide avenues for coming together.
Bruce Barnes, Ph.D.
Ron and Donna Fielding Director
May/June 2022 Bulletin
