Griffin Main Gallery

Juror, Aline Smithson founder of Lenscratch says, “The photographers I selected for the 20th juried exhibition of the Griffin Museum have this in common: the weight of intention behind the work. In a world when every single living thing has been photographed or has a camera, it’s that deep thinking that moves the work into the next level.”

Smithson goes on to say, “I am continually seeking to understand why work becomes successful and moves to the next level. I have observed that success comes from work that is made over time—time that allows for further contemplation, exploration, and a revisiting of subject matter, because as you grow as a photographer, your work grows too. Success also comes from work that has a technical level of excellence—not over sharpened, not over saturated, smartly captured and executed. And finally, success comes to work that has meaningful articulation and brings something new to the photographic dialogue. That articulation isn’t about what is obvious, but deeper thinking that is connected to something in your core that compels you to make the work.”

Smithson served as juror of the 20th Griffin Museum Juried Exhibition, which is on display in the Main Gallery of the museum July 10 through August 31. An opening reception is July 10, 7-8:30 p.m. with Aline Smithson in attendance. Ms. Smithson will do a lecture at 5:30 PM at the Griffin Museum in Winchester. The event is free to members and $7 to nonmembers. It requires an RSVP. The opening reception is free to all but requires an RSVP.

Smithson also says that “I looked at hundreds of images about water—waves and reflections. I looked at hundreds of images of abandoned spaces—peeling paint and empty rooms; there were photographs of parents’ and grandparents’ homes and collections of items left for the next generation; there were many images of architectural abstractions. I saw a number of terrific narrative projects that had more power as a whole than with single images, and I saw lots of work that was right on the cusp of being remarkable but needed more time to percolate and grow,” she explains.

This year the 20th Juried Show was held in honor of the legacy of Peter Urban a celebrated, Boston-based photographer who passed away in 2009 after a long battle with cancer. Urban was renowned for his success in both the commercial and artistic realm. In the spirit of Peter’s success creating a career with a balance of commercial and artistic work, his family has partnered with the Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston and the Griffin Museum of Photography to produce opportunities for other photographers to grow their careers.

Alongside the juried exhibition, the Arts and Business Council is organizing a series of professional development workshops presented by a diverse range of thought leaders. These workshops will share instrumental ideas, methods and tools to help build the business and legal foundation of a thriving artistic practice.

The Peter Urban Legacy Award went to Clare Carter. The Arthur Griffin Legacy Award went to Jennifer McClure and the Griffin Award went to Samuel Walker. Keiko Hiromi, Greg Sand and Susan Worsham received Honorable Mentions.

Smithson also awarded a virtual gallery space to 6o photographers. She awarded Brian Christopher Sargent a solo virtual gallery exhibition.

The complete list of photographers selected for the exhibition with links is available.

By creating photographic portraits of themselves and their surroundings, students from the Boston Arts Academy and Winchester High School have been exploring their sense of self and place in a unique collaborative program at the Griffin Museum.

In its ninth year, the 5-month program connects approximately 40 students – 20 from each school – with each other and with professional photographers. The goal is to increase students’ awareness of the art of photography, as well as how being from different programs and different schools affects their approach to the same project.

The students were given the task of creating a body of work that communicates a sense of self and place. They were encouraged to explore the importance of props, the environment, facial expression, metaphor, and body language in portrait photography.

Students met with Edie Bresler, a photographer, educator and resident of Somerville. Bresler described her artistic path in creating bodies of work and honed her focus on the lottery system. Watertown resident, photographer Stella Johnson talked with students about her photography projects in Mexico, Cameroon and Nicaragua.

Students also met with Sam Sweezy, a professional fine art and commercial photographer and educator who lives in Arlington, MA. He has exhibited at major photography venues including the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY.

Alison Nordstrom, former curator of the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., and Sweezy gathered with students for a group discussion of the work and a final edit of the exhibition.

“In collaboration and through creative discourse these students have grown,” said Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum. “We are very pleased to be able to share this year’s students’ work. We thank the mentors for providing a very meaningful experience for the students. We also want to thank the Griffin Foundation and the Murphy Foundation, whose continued commitment to this project made learning possible. To paraphrase Elliot Eisner, the arts enabled these students to have an experience that they could have from no other source.’’

The results are on exhibit in PhotoSynthesis IX in the Main Gallery of the Griffin Museum June 12 – June 29. An opening reception is Wednesday, June 18, 7-8:30 p.m. It is open to all.

Dominic Chavez is a freelance photographer based in Boston, Massachusetts, but he has spent much of his career on the road working in some of the world’s most challenging places. Chavez has recorded the effects of war in Colombia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Angola; the AIDS crisis in more than a dozen countries in Africa; and the battle to eradicate polio in countries in Africa and Asia. In addition, he has covered stories locally and nationally, focusing on the aftermath of 9/11; homeless populations; and those addicted to drugs.

Chavez’s series, U-TURN, is his newest body of work focused on the landscape and is featured in the Main Gallery at the Griffin Museum April 10 through June 8, 2014. An opening reception with the artist is April 10, 7-8:30 p.m.

"I’ve ventured into places too horrible for words, and horrible enough for pictures, such as a lonely forsaken spot along the border of Ethiopia and Eritrea, where tribal cousins fought as is they were in World War I, charging each other on foot, dying by the thousands, bulldozed into piles, and half-buried by dirt," says Dominic Chavez.

"When I was 19, I tried to photograph trees as if they were people. When I examined the frames, I was disappointed,” said Chavez. “As years have passed, it has become trying for me to distance myself from the difficult stories I shoot when I return home to the United States. Almost unconsciously I made a U-turn. I found myself again drawn to places without people," he says. "But this time, when I raised my camera, the scenes came alive. I saw the embrace of trees on Cape Cod, the weeping rocks of an icy cliff in Utah, and the uncertainty on a mountaintop in Maine, where fog obscured the ocean beneath."

"As a photojournalist Chavez unearths a narrative in nature in his series of photographs called U-Turn" says Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum of Photography."The story he tells is laden with emotion and portrays the strengths and frailties of the landscape."

In an artist statement Concord resident, David Prifti once wrote that is was his desire to explore his life through the things that shaped his life. These formative elements were his relationships, his memories, his sense of family, rites of passage, aging and death. The creative process that led to all of his photographs was indirectly a very personal journey for him.

Two years ago, David Prifti died at age fifty of pancreatic cancer. He was a dedicated and inspirational photography teacher at Concord-Carlisle High School for twenty-five years. Monika Andersson, Prifti’s widow, recalls that one of David’s famous sayings was “Do something for your art every day!” Andersson recalled Prifti as “vivacious and compassionate”, as “an irrepressible jokester”, “a crazy boisterous guru” and “always busy, and always on the move.” He also had “a quiet depth, and a deep love for life and the people in it.”

An exhibition, culled from a collection of Prifti’s photographic assemblages and wet plate collodion images, Prifti: Drawn by Light, is featured in the Main Gallery of the Griffin Museum January 9 through March 2, 2014. An opening reception is January 23, 7-8:30 p.m.

Of his photographic assemblages Prifti said, “Through the juxtaposition of images, found objects and ephemera, I create autobiographical associations that become symbolic, conveying a sense of personal history and the passage of time.” He also said, “The reusing of old materials allows me to resurrect them into a new form.”

For his wet plate collodion images, some of his first projects were of nature. “He had long been fascinated by trees, and especially those with exposed roots, showing how tenuous life’s hold on survival is,” said Monika Andersson. “He built a darkroom that he could load onto a skiff, and, wearing a set of waders I had bought him at a garage sale, would walk and canoe the river, tugging along the skiff with the darkroom, getting water’s edge access to the many trees along the Assabet river. Some of the trees were fallen; others were with their roots exposed, and gripping onto the edge of the world."

Prifti used wet plate collodion as a vehicle for portraits of his friends, students and acquaintances. He also photographed a community of people who alter their bodies.

Born in Worcester, MA. Prifti received an M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art, New
Haven, CT, and a B.F.A. from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA. He resided and worked in Concord with his wife and two children.

A gallery talk for museum members by Denyse Murphy – whose exhibit Confluence is featured in the Atelier Gallery – is at 6:15 p.m. January 23, prior to the opening reception for all exhibits.

All photographs courtesy of the Prifti Family Estate, Gallery Naga, Boston, MA and Rice Polak Gallery, Provincetown, MA.

Tired of just hanging mistletoe and wreaths for the holidays? Well, come see something special on our gallery walls. The Griffin has added a members open exhibition for all its members.

All members are invited to exhibit a framed photograph at the Griffin Museum of Photography. It should be 16″ x 20″ and under in size. 2D and 3D photo based art accepted.

Sales encouraged and there is an option to donate all proceeds to the Griffin Museum!

In his series, Kontinuum, Magyar uses an unconventional, high-performance digital camera that relies on scanning technology to speak about our urban world and people living an urban life.

Magyar has a fascination with the high-tech tools of our time, but remains devoted to the values of traditional photography.

Operating a machine-vision camera used in mass-production for scientific and industrial image processing, "Magyar catches moments in time and place that can neither be seen with the bare eye nor conventional optical camera," says Hannah Frieser, former Director of Light Work in Syracuse, NY. "The beautiful images combine the aesthetics of classic photography with a technology that redefines our understanding of linear time and singular space in a perfect blend of science and art."

Magyar explains, "The subway trains seemingly suspended in the tunnel are in fact arriving at the station at a at stunning speed. I could capture them moving with my high-speed slit camera that also enables me to achieve complete objectivity. The light is evenly distributed on the carriages, adding an unearthly glow to this urban underworld."

Magyar sees subways as the arteries of a city. "Through these temporary groups of passengers, I wonder about our transiency, see people immersed in their thoughts, but avoiding to reveal anything about themselves. They are stainless to the curious eye. The subways are just as stainless as their passengers."

Taking the Kontinuum project a step further, Magyar uses video and reverses his view. Instead of photographing from the subway platform, Magyar photographs from within the subway car, capturing people with a slow motion camera waiting for the train.

Magyar describes the images as, "An endless row of living sculptures brought together by the same subway line, the same direction, the same intention of taking the train to get caught and carried away by the urban flow. All their motions slowed down, they are graceful and stainless holding their breath, waiting for their train to pull into the station."

Magyar’s works have been exhibited in various solo and group shows internationally including Helsinki Photography Biennial in Finland; Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH) Mixed Media event, the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; Berlin Selected Artists exhibitions in Germany; the Ethnographic Museum Budapest; Faur Zsofi Gallery in Hungary; Rhubarb Rhubarb in the UK; and Karin Weber Gallery in Hong Kong.

His works are part of collections worldwide, such as Deutsche Bank, the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, and the Bidwell Projects. His photographs have been published in the book Life of Cities by the Graduate School of Design Harvard University, Light and Lens by Robert Hirsch, and in photography magazines including PDN and PQ Magazine in the USA, Flash Art in Hungary, Digital Camera Magazine in UK, and Katalog in Denmark. He lives in Berlin. His work can be viewed at www.magyaradam.com.

The Photography Atelier 18 will present an exhibit of student and faculty artwork from September 12th through September 29rd, 2013. The Atelier is a course for intermediate and advanced photographers offered by the Griffin Museum of Photography. You are invited to come view the photographs at the Griffin Gallery, 67 Shore Road, Winchester, Massachusetts 01890.

On Thursday, September 12th, the public is invited to attend the artists’ reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Work by the Photography Atelier 18 members includes: Bob Avakian’s "Between Night and Day," landscapes from Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod taken between dusk and dawn; Nan Campbell Collins’ "Wildwood" images of the mysterious dimensions of veiled as well as luminous light, shape and form experienced within a wildwood; Diane Rubino Davies’ series of fine art child portraits, "In Plain View;" Sue D’Arcy Fuller’s photo essay tells a story of her own city, Medford, Massachusetts, through images of the people who live, work and praise there; Nancy Fulton’s landscapes at the beginning of the wet in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, Africa, "The Rains of Ngorongoro Crater;" Rich Perry’s photographs of the structures of the 1920s and 30s on Route 66 in Oklahoma as they were in March 2013, "Route 66, Oklahoma – The Past in the Present;" Larry Raskin images of the shapes, colors and the play of light reflected in the vehicles we use and see every day, "Reflections on the Move;" Astrid Reischwitz’s "Bedroom Project" which brings intimate spaces into public view; Amy Rindskopf’s images of "Spring in the Greenhouse;" Gail Samuelson’s "Head Shots" – an homage to loved ones which includes vintage hats, WWII shoulder boards, and fake beards; Ellen Slotnick’s "Paradox," interior photographs from abandoned homesteads and farmhouses in North Dakota; Jeanne Wells’ "Winter Gardens,"a series of glass ambrotypes; course assistant Meg Birnbaum’s photographs documenting "The Boston Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" and instructor Karen Davis’s "Touch," portraits of moments of connection.

About the class:
Photography Atelier, in its seventeenth year, is a unique portfolio-making course for emerging to advanced photographers. In addition to guidance and support in the creation of a body of work, the class prepares artists to market, exhibit and present their work to industry professionals.
Each participant in the Atelier presents a final project in the form of a print portfolio, a photographic book or album, a slide show, or a mixed media presentation. In every Atelier students hang a gallery exhibition and produce work for their own pages on the Atelier website. To see the photography of present and past Atelier students and teachers, please visit: www.photographyatelier.org. Instructor Karen Davis, will be happy to discuss the Photography Atelier at the reception on September 12th with anyone interested in joining the class.

Juror, Kathy Ryan, Director of Photography for the New York Times Magazine says, “The photographers I selected for the 19th juried exhibition of the Griffin Museum have this in common: faith in photography’s ability to tell stories.”

“Their pictures make the reader listen. Some construct fictional narratives to deliver a social critique. Some use classic documentary methods. These photographers aren’t upending the medium,”she says. “They are embracing its documentary powers.”

Ryan served as juror of the 19th Griffin Museum Juried Exhibition, which is on display in the Main Gallery of the museum July 18 through September 1. An opening reception is July 18, 7-8:30 p.m.

Ryan says that “the usual mix of photographic genres was submitted to the competition.”
“Portraiture, landscape, still lives, and interiors are all here,” she explains.

There was a common element that Ryan noticed, too. She says, “Domestic life dominated the submissions and is well represented in this exhibition. There are lots of details of the interiors of homes—refrigerators, TVs, clothing, beds, flowered wallpaper, and windows. Sometimes there are people, presented feelingly.”

Of the Legacy Award recipient Ryan says, “Sarah-Marie Land’s elegant pictures of children in school uniforms are hypnotic thanks to the odd tension between their grown-up poses and warm, innocent surroundings. There is a hint of something sinister—perhaps naughty—behind these simple, precise pictures.”

Julia Cybularz, the Griffin Award recipient, “achieves something unusual,” says Ryan. Of her photographs she says that they are “beautiful pictures of a young girl dueling with a serious medical condition. She doesn’t intend to shock. Yet with exactitude, she portrays the back brace and body cast—the realities of scoliosis. We are surprised, and not surprised, to find that she suffers from the same condition.”

Sarah-Marie Land received the $1,000 Legacy Award. Julia Cybularz received the $500 Griffin Award. Honorable mentions were awarded to Juan Fernandez, Nancy Grace Horton, Mary Kocol, Monika Merva, and Joseph Ow.

The complete list of photographers selected for the exhibition is:
Bob Avakian
Margo Cooper
Francis Crisafio
Julia Cybularz- $500 Griffin Award
Barbara Diener
Steven Duede
Christian Farnsworth
Juan Fernandez- Honorable Mention
Emily Franklin
David Gardner
Eran Gilat
Meg Griffiths
Nancy Grace Horton- Honorable Mention
Daniel Jackson
Becky Jaffe
Phil Jung
Brian Kaplan
Ashley Kauschinger
Stefanie Klavens
John Kobeck
Mary Kocol- Honorable Mention
Alena Kuzub
Molly Lamb
Sarah-Marie Land- $1,000 Legacy Award
Walter Landry
Julie McCarthy
Mary Beth Meehan
Yvette Meltzer
Fabiola Menchelli Tejeda
Monika Merva- Honorable Mention
Charles Mintz
Sarah Nesbitt
Joseph Ow- Honorable Mention
Camilo Ramirez
Suzanne Revy
Michelle Rogers Pritzl
Eleonora Ronconi
Paul Sisson
Elizabeth Swain
Samantha VanDeman
Arthur Zachai
The Griffin Museum of Photography has selected four photographers from the submissions for future exhibitions in 2014:
Paul Adams
Manuel Cosentino
Marjorie Salvaterra
Rafael Soldi