Photo Gallery @ The Carpenter Center
24 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
617.495.3251
Mon-Sat: 10 am - 11 pm
Sun: 1 - 5 pm
Shane Lavalette: Ladies and Gentlemen
November 2—November 29, 2009
From November 2nd through the 29th, 2009, Shane Lavalette’s project Ladies and Gentlemen will be displayed in the photography cases of the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard University.
Ladies and Gentlemen consists of a selection of found studio portrait cards – 12 women and 12 men, each measuring approximately 4.5 x 6.5 in. – as collected by photographer Shane Lavalette. The cards were produced in the late 19th Century by various photographic studios around New England, many in Vermont where Lavalette is originally from. The images often depict subjects gazing out of the frame, frozen and lost in thought. Brought together, the photographs ask us to consider the personalities and roles of these individuals as well the blurred line of femininity/masculinity that exists on their surface.
In his text titled Out of the Ordinary, Martin Parr puts forward a case for taking more seriously such everyday objects: “Spend some time looking,” he begs, “…At their design, their shape, their individual characteristics. Think ahead and imagine their significance...” It seems that Lavalette, too, understands the notion of taking these objects more seriously and believes in the potential (and indeed pleasure) of viewing them in splendid isolation.
Shane Lavalette (b. 1987, Burlington, VT) holds a BFA from Tufts University in partnership with The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Lavalette’s photographs have been exhibited and published widely. Most recently, his work was published in the New York Times Magazine and in Humble Arts Foundation's book The Collector's Guide to Emerging Art Photography. His project “Slí na Boirne” was selected as one of the winners of the prestigious Yousuf Karsh Prize in Photography, juried this year by Anne Havinga (Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Curator of Photographs, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), Leslie Brown (Curator, Photographic Resource Center) and Emily Isenberg (Director, LaMontagne Gallery).
Lavalette is also the founder and editor of Lay Flat, a print publication of contemporary photography and writing (online at www.layflat.org).
For more information about Lavalette’s work or to contact him directly: www.shanelavalette.com
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS:
Robert Gardner: December 1—December 22
PAST EXHIBITIONS:
Every Day: Karl Baden
September 11—October 31, 2009
From September 11 through October 31, 2009, an updated version of Karl Baden's lifelong work-in-progress Every Day will be displayed in the Photo Gallery in the basement level of the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard University.
In the midst of the recent trend for taking daily pictures of one's face and posting them on YouTube as Quicktime videos, it is worth noting that Karl Baden has been quietly and consistently making a daily photograph of his own face for more than two decades, and has presented various facets of this ongoing, lifelong endeavor in more than a dozen exhibition spaces and publications.
Baden, a photographer and faculty member at Boston College, began the series Every Day on February 23rd 1987. Since that date, he has, on a daily basis, made a photograph of his face. The circumstances under which this picture is taken, says Baden, "... are as controlled as I am able to make them and still maintain a life. I use a single camera, a single type of extremely high resolution film, an electronic strobe, a tripod and a white backdrop. A small, additional tripod and backdrop make the setup portable; it accompanies me when I travel. The camera is always set at the same distance. I try to center myself in the frame, maintain a neutral expression and look straight into the lens."
Baden considers it essential that each days image be no more nor less than a detailed visual record of his presence. "I intentionally avoid odd framing, engaging composition, unusual lighting or any other strategy that favors the photograph at the expense of the subject," he states, adding, " In essence, my attempt has been to standardize the technical and logistic aspects of this procedure to the extent that only one variable remains: whatever change may occur in my face and flesh, measured obsessively and incrementally by the day, for the rest of my life."
The nature of Every Day presumes it to be a work in progress. The form of its presentation varies, depending on space and circumstance. Being somewhat older than the YouTube generation, Baden has so far limited display of his project to gallery and museum settings, re-configuring the presentation, photograph, digital image or time-lapse film, to fit each venue.
In this site-specific exhibition, Baden and Harvard's photography department have installed a twenty foot long grid of dated self-portraits, from February 23rd, 1987 to July 26th, 2009. The display may have a particular resonance with Harvard's undergraduate population, many of whom were not yet born when the project started.
For information, please contact Karl Baden at badenk@bc.edu