Public Opening reception:

Friday, June 7th, 2019 6-8pm

About the exhibition:

Encounters with Whitman is an exhibition in two parts, photography and video, both celebrating the Whitman Bicentennial.

Photography was a medium of fascination and importance to Whitman, in particular portraiture and landscape. The significance of these two themes are also reflected in his own literary work. The photography of Encounters with Whitman explore the contemporary landscape and portraiture that now defines our American experience.

The Video component to Encounters with Whitman examines, reinterprets, and celebrates Whitman’s Calamus poems. Forming part of Whitman’s larger collection of Leaves of Grass (1855), the Calamus poems remain one of the earliest and most explicit poetical sequences celebrating homoerotic love and affection between men. These poems also helped to shape individual and collective gay male ideas of democracy, masculinity, sex, freedom, and community. It is the exploration of these aspects of Whitman’s work we seek to highlight through this exhibition.

"That shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering; How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits; How often I question and doubt whether that is really me; —But in these, and among my lovers, and caroling my songs, O I never doubt whether that is really me."
-Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass

ABOUT THE JURORs:

Photo jurors: Paul Cava & Stuart Rome
Video jurors: Stiofan O’Ceallaigh & José Luis Cortes

Participating Artists:

Andrea Walls, Geoffrey Agrons, Marcus Branch, Tony Rocco, Jennifer Brinton Robkin, Mario Nascati, Howard Brunner, Nanci Hellmuth, Angelo Benedetto, Jay Roth, Amanda Tinker, Eddy Rhenals-Narvaez, Jose Luis Cortes & Royal Torres, Julien Tomasello, Ric Stott & Kala Heatherson, Mateo Sierra, Ian MacKinnon, Brandon Straus, Xaq Iria, Stiofan O'Ceallaigh, Juliana Romero Hillman, Chris Northey, Menelas, and Vicente Ortiz Cortez.

press: