Exhibit at UMaine’s Lord Hall Explores Photography as Documentary
Contact: Michael Grillo, 581-3252; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — A new art exhibit opening Feb. 9 at the Lord Hall Galleries on the University of Maine’s Orono campus uses work by seven internationally renowned photographers to assess the meaning and objectivity of the camera as a means of documentation.
“Documentation: Photography as Witness” brings together the work of Christina Anderson, Cella and Klaus Knoll, Annette Fournet, Bob Kiss, Barbara Kossy and Flounder Lee “to explore the broad range of possibilities that documentation, in its myriad possibilities, can suggest about the relationship among events, witnesses, photographic media and audience expectations,” according to Michael Grillo, professor of art and exhibit curator.
The show runs Feb. 9-March 16, with an opening reception Feb. 9, from 5-7 p.m. at Lord Hall. The reception and the exhibit are free and the public is welcome to view it during normal business hours Monday through Friday.
The show, Grillo explains, “asks just what do we mean by documentary photography?” He seeks an answer by featuring seven photographers with very different understandings of what it can mean.
Grillo selected six entries from each of seven photographers after soliciting entries through a nationwide search. The exhibit is intended to evoke an analysis of photography, from the equipment and technical processing of photographic images, to the intention of the photographer and the perceptions of the audience.
“Think of all the great events we have photographed as if a particular perspective could cover the complexity in understanding any situation,” says Grillo. “Because of its shared optical technology with microscopes, telescopes and other scientific instruments, photography has claimed the role of objective witness. Yet, from its inception, photography has called attention to how it actively shapes its subjects through selective framing, focusing, highlighting and other compositional means.”
A practicing professional photographer and Medieval and Renaissance art historian, Grillo lectures on photography, film studies and new media. Through his work, he seeks to explore how aesthetic theories play out directly in application in the world, particularly how photography operates as a social process.
For further information, Grillo can be reached at 581-3252 or by email at: grillo@maine.edu.