On the Horizon / Fall 2021
Fall 2021 Exhibition Preview
With an exciting line-up of programming, we are thrilled to bring you an array of exhibitions, which are rich in theme, content, and photographic practice. Mark your calendars, plan a field-trip, and check back for Artist Talks and other programming that will accompany the exhibitions each month.
Carl Bower, Private Fears, November 2021
Al J Thompson, Remnants of an Exodus, September 2021
Rachel Papo, It’s Been Pouring, December 2021
SEPTEMBER
Gary Burnley, After Guy, 2018
Gary Burnley visually restructures the Black lived experience by offering viewers alternatives to long-held Western ideals. Critical Mass 2020 Solo Show Award Winner
Al J Thompson’s second home, away from his native Jamaica, is Spring Valley, NY, a community of Caribbean emigres. In Remnants of an Exodus, Thompson turns his camera on this ever-changing community, as it evolves demographically and politically.
OCTOBER
Manal Abu-Shaheen, View from Hotel Window. Beirut, Lebanon, 2016
In Noelle Mason’s X-ray Vision v. Invisibility, the artist challenges the traditional application of photography as documentary to emphasize its technological purpose and its role as a means to an end. Mason’s work exposes the emotional and tragic consequences in a time of surveillance. Critical Mass 2019 Solo Show Award Winner.
What are the signs and signifiers that make a place (and its history) known to outsiders and to its inhabitants, and is it truly representative of its reality? Or has the impact of colonialism prevailed, a place now constructed by “others.” In Mapping Utopia, Manal Abu-Shaheen tackles these questions as she creates a visual archive of contemporary Lebanon.
NOVEMBER
Steven B. Smith, Draper, Utah, # 28
What happens when McMansions begin to dominate the natural landscape? Is this the modern-day version of “Westward Expansion?” In Your Mountain is Waiting, Steven B. Smith examines this phenomenon and highlights the myriad people that occupy this newly ready-made landscape.
In Private Fears, Carl Bower pairs portraiture with the voice of his subjects to unveil their greatest fears. The most private thoughts are made public. It is a lesson in making known who we really are in the most courageous way.
DECEMBER
Sonia Lenzi, Take me to Live with You
Through her photographic project, It’s Been Pouring: The Dark Secret of the First Year of Motherhood, Rachel Papo subverts the romantic notions of motherhood as she shares the very real condition of postpartum depression that she and other women experience. By documenting contrasting and visceral feelings through photographs and journal entries, Papo builds awareness of something that often goes unnoticed or is misunderstood.
Take Me to Live with You, is another kind of documentary project that offers up an archive of collective relationships of the people, history, culture and values of Italy. Sonia Lenzi brings us into the homes of elders, as photos of spaces and objects and people recall personal memories and serve as lessons for future generations.
Please direct questions or press inquiries regarding Blue Sky’s upcoming exhibitions to bluesky@blueskygallery.org.