NYAB Event - "A Social Context: Group Photography and Identity" Exhibition

"A Social Context: Group Photography and Identity" Exhibition

Baruch College/Sidney Mishkin Gallery

This event has ended.

Photographs of people in groups can convey a broad range of subject matter and meaning, from the familial and fraternal to the disturbing and sinister. Social constructs and perceptions influence both our individual and collective identities, as the work of the eleven photographers in this exhibition demonstrates (see exhibition poster).

This exhibition includes images that have become touchstones of 20th century history and culture. The French photographer Gilles Peress has chronicled the trauma of violence and war in Rwanda, Bosnia, Iran, and Ireland. His images can be disturbing and heart-rending; they are never sentimental. In these eloquent photos, group identities, ethnic and tribal, provide the impetus for violence and fear. Especially shocking is Candace Scharsu’s portrait of a female child soldier in Sierra Leone, branded for life with RUF (Revolutionary United Front) etched on her chest. Her affiliation with the group, however involuntary, is permanent.

All photographs in this exhibition are from the permanent collection of Baruch College. The photographers represented include Elliott Erwitt, Larry Fink, Milt Hinton, Garry Winogrand, Lucien Clergue, Neal Slavin, Gilles Peress, Candace Scharsu, Leonard Sussman, Carrie Mae Weems, and Andy Warhol. The exhibition is curated by Mishkin Gallery director Sandra Kraskin.