This course explores the ways in which objects and material culture embody personal narrative. Moving back and forth from ephemeral traces of events and experiences to the culturally invested luxury goods that create legacy to the objects that facilitate daily life, this class will use, as its primary references, examples that draw from queer and African American cultures to underscore the potential of objects to tell the stories that not only reflect majority traditions and experiences but those of the disenfranchised, the details of whose lives are often obscured. In addition to readings that will provide background for class discussion, student will be asked to play the roles of detectives, archeologists, and curators at various sites around New York City. Each student will also be asked to create an annotated material record that reveals the public and private lives of one individual. That record may consist of texts, objects or any variety of media chosen or designed by the student. This blogs serves as an archive for the work done in the context of this course and related materials that become relevant to this exploration.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

What evidence does a portrait hold?

What is visible in a portrait?
posted by Tony Whitfield

from http://strangeflowers.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/berenice-abbott-portraits/

Berenice Abbott | portraits

By James Conway / March 22, 2012 / Gallery, Paris / 22 comments

American photographer Berenice Abbott is currently the subject of a major show at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. Abbott was connected to much of that city’s avant-garde and expatriate communities in the 1920s and took compelling portraits of her illustrious crowd. And while the exhibition draws on her entire oeuvre, including her acclaimed series on New York City, it’s hard to go past these brilliant character studies.