PhotoVision: Selections from a Decade of Collecting

September 19, 2014 - January 4, 2015

top half of woman's face in front of red circle

“…a fascinating, ambitious new show…” –Brian Howe, IndyWeek  Read the review!

The Ackland Art Museum holds the leading collection of photography in North Carolina, one that has both regional and national significance. The Museum’s broad and deep collection of approximately 2,000 photographs represents the entire history of the art form, from daguerreotypes and salted paper prints of the early nineteenth century to digital inkjet prints of the twenty-first century.

From the nearly 500 photographic works acquired by the Ackland in the last ten years, over 150 have been selected for PhotoVision. Organized by evocative groupings, the chosen works will present the myriad intents behind and effects of this powerful medium. Thematic sections will include Photography and Multiplicity, Sacred Spaces, Process and Product, and Staging the Image.

A substantial section will be devoted to a “daisy chain” of photography: approximately 50 photographs spanning a wide range of periods, techniques, subjects, and styles forming a continuous sequence, each one linked to its neighbor by a different visual association―a detail, a formal echo, a surprising parallel.

A dozen additional photographs will be on view in the Ackland’s eight permanent collection galleries, juxtaposed in thought-provoking ways with African, Asian, and Western paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts.

Also on view: Adding to the Mix 8: William H. Mumler’s Mrs. W. H. Mumler, Clairvoyant Physician (1870s)

PhotoVision and its accompanying programming are made possible in part by the generous support of James Keith Brown and Eric Diefenbach, The Joseph F. McCrindle Foundation Endowment Fund for Conservation, Strowd Roses, Inc., and Classic.

PhotoVision is part of Click! Triangle Photography Festival, October 2014.ClickLogo

Image Credit: Pamela Singh, Indian, born 1962: Tantric Self-Portrait in Jaipur #1, 2000-2001; mixed-media photograph. © 2000-2001 Pamela Singh / Sepia International. Ackland Fund, 2005.1.