Gary Schneider ~ genetic self-portrait ~ at the Warehouse Gallery

Tuesday, 18 December 2007 23:58

Syracuse, NY – The Warehouse Gallery opened its first solo exhibition with work by Gary Schneider titled genetic self-portrait. The exhibition will be on view through Jan. 26, 2008. The show includes 55 photo-based works that Schneider produced when he was offered a chance to create a new body of work inspired by the Human Genome Project (HGP). The HGP, a scientific race to uncover the mysteries of DNA, began formally in the 1990s and was completed in 2003. During that period, Schneider was able to collaborate with a number of scientists and was given access to advanced imaging systems from electron microscopes to x-ray machines.

The work in the exhibition ranges from images of his individual chromosomes made by a light microscope to panoramic dental x-rays. Schneider is known as a master photographic printer, and by combining his skill as a craftsman and selecting specimens for their aesthetic qualities, he moved beyond scientific descriptions to produce a personal portrait that asks us to consider how we are unique and where we stand on common ground.

Schneider had always been interested in alternative imaging techniques, and previous to this project he had been making images by imprinting his hands onto film emulsions. When he decided to include these prints along with the images he had been making with scientists, he realized that what he had been creating was a new kind of portrait. Ann Thomas, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Canada, described it as a new approach that "challenges the traditional definition of the portrait, and revises our understanding of what it means to be revealed before the camera's lens."

By merging scientific accuracy with poetic resonance, Schneider has created a very personal illumination of how our individual identity is so closely linked to our broader understanding and use of the information contained in the human building blocks of our DNA. Through the personal exploration that went into creating genetic self-portrait, Schneider reveals that while we may always want to think of ourselves as more than the sum of our parts, our real promise might be found in looking at the 99 percent of ourselves we have in common with everyone else.

Schneider's work has been exhibited internationally, and recent exhibition venues include the Sackler Mu­seum at Harvard College in Boston and the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland. A major retrospective of his work will open at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego in 2008. Schneider's photographs are included in the permanent collections at The Whitney Museum, The Guggenheim Museum and The Metropolitan Museum in New York City; The National Gallery of Canada; The Musée de L'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland; The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and The Art Institute of Chicago.

The Warehouse Gallery is an international contemporary art venue of the SUArt Galleries at Syracuse University. The gallery's mission is to present exhibitions and programs by artists whose work engages the community in a dialogue regarding the role the arts can play in illuminating critical issues of our life and times.

Visit the Warehouse Gallery at : www.thewarehousegallery.org