Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) hosts 'FLESH' Portraiture by Gary Schneider

Friday, 21 March 2008 02:11

San Diego, CA – The Museum of Photographic Arts is pleased to present FLESH: Portraiture by Gary Schneider  from April 27 to September 14, 2008. Consisting of more than 45 images in black and white and color, FLESH: Portraiture by Gary Schneider  includes three celebrated series by the artist, GENETIC SELF-PORTRAIT, JOHN IN SIXTEEN PARTS, and NUDES, along with several portrait studies and still lives focused on the mutable nature of flesh.
 
Schneider uses the newest scientific imaging technologies to make portraits of himself. He also photographs a community of friends and family gathered by the photographer for exposures of varying lengths, some over an hour long. The resulting images are intimate (hand portraits to scale) or imposing (full length nudes), and beautifully printed (Schneider printed for Lisette Model, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Mary Ellen Mark, and Gilles Peress, among others). In his NUDES series particularly, artist and sitter have created portraits that are “performances,” says Schneider, in which “something totally unexpected” emerges as his subjects either “engage in or resist my process.”

GENETIC SELF-PORTRAIT stems from an offer Schneider received in 1996 to make photographs in response to some of the revolutionary discoveries emerging from the Human Genome Project. Combining his interests in self-portraiture and biology, Schneider explores specimen samples of various parts of his own body by consulting with doctors and geneticists who created diagnostic and forensic photographs, as well as X rays, radiographs, photograms and micrographs of his own body.  
 
JOHN IN SIXTEEN PARTS is a facial study of Schneider’s partner of 30 years, John Erdman. Cubist in feel, including eyes, mouth, nose, ears, and chin, John’s physiognomy is disembodied, multiplied, and transformed like a jigsaw puzzle. Schneider selectively reveals aspects of the subject’s face with the intimacy of one who knows (and cherishes) every crease and wayward hair.   
       
In NUDES, the artist presents a haunting series of full-length life-size portraits that appear to float above a receding black ground. The skin tones are luminous as they emerge from the darkness, which Schneider illuminates solely by a small flashlight. The resulting portraits are intriguing in their exaggerations and irregularities, highlighting the beauty, personality, and physicality of each figure.
 
Artist Information
Gary Schneider was born in 1954 in East London, South Africa, and has lived in New York since the late 1970s. His work was the subject of a major exhibition that opened at Harvard University’s Fogg Museum in February 2004. He has shown extensively worldwide, including Museé d’Elysee in Lausanne, Switzerland; the Museum of Fine Art in Houston, Texas; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Illinois. Schneider has multiple books on his work, and was featured in Art Forum (March, 1995; Sept., 2001), Aperture (Fall, 2004), Art News (cover; April, 2000), and the New York Times Sunday Magazine (July, 2006).
 
In 2006, Gary Schneider was awarded MoPA’s Lou Stoumen Prize. The Prize was established with an endowment from the estate of photographer/filmmaker Lou Stoumen in 1991. It is regularly awarded to a mid-career photographer whose work relates in spirit and sympathy to Stoumen’s own humanistic style of photography. “For Schneider this translates into an unflinching yet sensitive study of what we all share—this vulnerable, corporeal residence we call the body: cells, blood, skin, bones, male or female, gay or straight, young or old,” observes curator Carol McCusker.
 
MoPA Information
The Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) is one of the few museums in the country devoted to photography, film and video.  Since its founding in 1983, MoPA has been dedicated to collecting, preserving and exhibiting the entire spectrum of the photographic medium. The museum’s endeavors consistently address cultural, historical and social issues through its exhibitions and public programs.

Visit www.mopa.org  for information about exhibitions, programs and special events.