January | February 2006 - Boston Photography Focus

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14 | DOCUMENT Michael Manning (Cambridge, MA), Lee on the corner, Frances and Churro stay warm on the grate, 2003, From the series “La Familia,” 2003, gelatin silver print, 14 x 21 inches, Courtesy of and copyright Michael Manning exhibited at the Boston Architectural Center, Fidelity Corporation (Boston, MA), and the Danforth Museum of Art (Framingham, MA), for which he was juried into the biennial New England Photographers twice and won a purchase award in 2005. A former staff photographer to CNC publications, he has also contributed to the Associated Press, New York Times, Rolling Stone, Boston Magazine, and the Boston Globe, among others. Manning’s other projects include an inside look at a large Greek Orthodox Church in Watertown, MA, the festival of Cosmas and Damien in East Cambridge, MA, and an ongoing series on his own family. His website is michaelmanningphoto.com. AMBER DAVIS TOURLENTES (Somerville, MA) For the past eight years, Davis has been photographing her family: her gay father, his lifelong partner, mother and stepfather as well as other gay-parented families. This project, “Families on Stage,” features selections of images of Boston area gay-parented families taken during Family Week in Provincetown, MA over the course of 4 years (2002-2005). Sponsored by the Family Pride Coalition—a unique non-profit organization that supports legislation, funding, and research regarding LGBT families—the weeklong conference draws thousands and garners national attention. Taken on stage at the local town hall, each portrait serves to put forth a muchneeded candid glimpse of the gay family, which recently shifted demographically to the Boston suburbs. Davis plays with expectations of documentary work with her frank compositional choices and sheer repetition. A unique blending of art and activism, Davis’ project takes on increased meaning given the ruling on gay marriage in our state, but also speaks to how we all picture ourselves as and within family. A native of Boston’s South End, Davis received her MFA in Photography and Computer Arts at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1998 and then taught at Princeton University (Princeton, NJ). Currently, she teaches photography and new media at Massachusetts College of Art and Emerson College (Boston, MA). She is involved with many activist and support groups such as HRC (Humanity Rights Campaign), Families Like Mine, and COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere). Davis’s work with gay-parented families has been featured in countless solo and group exhibitions and gay, lesbian, and transgendered targeted publications. In 2005, she received one of five individual grants in photography from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her website is amberdavisphotographer.com. CONCLUSIONS Each of the photographers in DOCUMENT has expressed to me, on various occasions and in various ways, an assortment of sentiments beginning with the same verb: “remember….”. Remember the issues behind the photos. Remember the subjects. Remember Amber Davis Tourlentes (Somerville, MA), detail of Families On Stage, one family from the Boston area out of the series “Family Portraits,” Archival ink jet print, (original in color), 2002-2005, dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist that these people are sharing their lives. I encourage you, as readers and viewers, to consider this advice as well. What do the subjects give (or not give) to the photographer and by extension, to us What do we take from this documentary encounter What could or should we give back to them The photographs on display in the gallery represent only the tip of the iceberg for the photographers and for the PRC. Inspired by the exhibition, we have planned an extensive menu of educational programs (see page 4), school tours, and an online component with additional information, interviews, and links. As an added resource, in the gallery and online, the PRC presents what hopes to be an ever-expanding annotated timeline of past and current documentary projects by Boston photographers focusing on Boston. As this goes to press, even more outreach efforts are in the works. Philosophically, these educational offerings are as much a part of the exhibition as anything else. Seen through the eyes and lenses of these 9 artists and their distinctive interests, sensibilities, and methods, I hope a larger picture of Boston and some of the social issues before us at this particular time will come into focus. Beginning with the opening of the gallery exhibition, we encourage you to visit the online component to DOCUMENT at www. bu.edu/prc/document. In addition, a special display of publications related to the themes in the exhibition will be available in the PRC’s Aaron Siskind library.
DOCUMENT | 15 ENDNOTES 1 Two key publicly-funded projects in Boston were produced under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). Sponsored by the Artists Foundation, the “Boston Photo-Documentary Project” focused on the areas of the Leather District and the Fort Point channel neighborhood between 1980 and 1982. It included PRC founder Chris Enos, Richards, Kipton Kumler, John Rizzo, Sage Sohier, and Jim Stone. Another project concerned the dismantling of the Orange line elevated train and included photographers David Akiba, Jack Lueders-Booth, Lou Jones, Linda Swartz, Melissa Shook, among others (1984- 1987). The images from these surveys are archived respectively at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Boston Public Library. Other projects related to Boston included the “Outer Boston Project” (1980), focusing on the areas between Route 128 and I-495, sponsored by the Art Institute of Boston and a survey of Brockton (1981), sponsored by the Brockton Art Museum; both were NEA funded. For a complete list of NEA funded projects see Mark Rice, Through the Lens of the City: NEA Photography Surveys of the 1970s, Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2005. An important social and documentary photography collection, which is now on permanent deposit at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum, was recently honored with an exhibition in fall 2005 titled, A New Kind of Historical Evidence: Photographs from the Carpenter Center Collection. A unique documentary publication, DoubleTake magazine was founded in 1995 by Harvard Social Ethics Professor of Dr. Robert Coles, and called Somerville’s Davis Square its home from 1999 until it ceased publication in 2003 and closed its doors in 2004. For an excellent overview of Boston documentary work, including its exhibition, collection, and publication, see the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park exhibition catalogue Photography in Boston: 1955- 1985, Boston: MIT Press, 2000. The PRC aims to have an extensive, ongoing annotated timeline on display in the gallery and online of documentary projects concerning Boston by Boston area photographers. 2 Frank Gohlke and Barbara Nofleet were two Boston-area photographers invited to participate in the National Millennium Survey, a project involving 35 photographers and 15 writers overseen by Jim Enyeart, one of the first organizers of the NEA photography surveys in the 1970s. The resulting traveling exhibition, Photographers, Writers, and the American Scene: Visions of Passage, was sponsored by the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, CA, and was shown locally at the Massachusetts College of Art in 2003. 3 Rice, 50. 4 Ibid, 198. 5 Ibid, 217. Addison Gallery of American Art Young America The Daguerreotypes of SOUTHWORTH & HAWES 28 January through 9 April 2006 ADDISON presents a Landmark Exhibition Southworth & Hawes, [Unidentified Bride], ca. 1850, daguerreotype, whole plate, 8 1/2 x 6 1/2 in., George Eastman House Collection Organized by the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film and the International Center of Photography, Young America was made possible by a major lead grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, with additional support from M&T Bank, Nixon Peabody LLP and the National Endowment of the Arts. The Addison’s presentation of Young America has been generously funded by the Mollie Bennett Lupe & Garland M. Lasater Exhibitions Fund, and by Alan G. Schwartz, PA ’48 and Steven L. Schwartz, PA ’72. Phillips Academy 180 Main Street Andover MA 01810 978.749.4015 www.addisongallery.org
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January | February 2006 - Boston Photography Focus

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