Emma Wilcox Exhibition
Gitterman Gallery
This event has ended.
This exhibition is comprised of work from Wilcox’s Eminent Domain and Forensic Landscapes series. Wilcox is interested in the various ways that land is marked, be it chemically, visually or textually. Taken primarily within a 5-mile radius of Newark, NJ, these haunting, enigmatic images suggest multiple narratives, hinting at crime, destruction and violence. Artist and critic Tim Maul writes: “progress” has rendered these landscapes ancient, and Wilcox is both a cartographer and guerrilla, staging interventions embedded within photographs that like maps themselves, never succeed as precise conveyors of “truth”. The images bear no obvious time stamp; they serve as a subjective document and challenge the notion of evidence. Though often dark, both visually and conceptually, the work has an underlying note of resilience and perseverance.
Wilcox’s father, great-uncle and grandfather all worked in Newark for periods of time in their lives. Interested in the role that individual memory plays in the creation of local history, Wilcox moved to Newark after college. She began taking photographs at night on foot, developing her own familiarity with the area and its history. In 2005, when she was evicted from where she was living by the state because of eminent domain, Wilcox became determined to claim Newark as a place she refused to leave.
It is difficult to date Wilcox’s work, prompting the question: do her subjects still exist or are they on the brink of disappearing? The gelatin silver process, which uses chemical processes now considered archaic, is an ideal medium for depicting landscapes with a long chemical memory. These photographs are a testament to what endures, ensuring that her subjects will never vanish completely.
Media
Schedule
from June 25, 2010 to July 31, 2010