By Elin Spring and Suzanne Révy
Summer is for explorations! Get yours started right with these exciting, blissful, and challenging photography exhibits and events all over metro Boston and New England. As always, we have listed our features geographically for your planning convenience and encourage you to check back regularly for ongoing updates and new listings.
BOSTON PROPER
“The Meadow” 2003, from the series The Meadow by Barbara Bosworth (American, born in 1953). Photograph, inkjet print, Scott Offen Collection, © Barbara Bosworth, courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA, Boston) – During her long career, photographer and naturalist Barbara Bosworth has created a trilogy of seminal projects devoted to The Meadow, The Heavens, and The Sea. In The Meadow, Bosworth, her large-format camera, and writer friend Margot Anne Kelley chronicled a meadow in Carlisle, Massachusetts over 15 years at different times of day and in all seasons. In the large-scale photographs on exhibit, Bosworth’s incessant curiosity, detailed observations and sense of belonging to the environment invite viewers to share her visceral and spiritual connections. The Meadow will be on view in the museum’s Herb Ritts Gallery through December 1st, 2024.
For more information, go to: https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/barbara-bosworth-the-meadow
Stephen Shames, Oakland, California: Kathleen Cleaver, Communications Secretary and first female member of the Party’s decision-making Central Committee, talks with Black Panthers from Los Angeles who came to the “Free Huey” rally in DeFremery Park (named by the Panthers Bobby Hutton Park) in West Oakland (detail), 1968. Archival pigment print. Gift of Lizbeth and George Krupp. © 2023, Stephen Shames. Courtesy of MFA, Boston.
Continuing at MFA, Boston – Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party gathers twenty-seven photographs by Stephen Shames that document the efforts these women undertook at community schools, free medical clinics, voter registration sites, community nutrition programs, and elder care centers across the United States, recalling and underlining their importance to the civil rights movement. On view through June 24th, 2024.
For more information, go to: https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/comrade-sisters-women-of-the-black-panther-party
“Mill Creek, West Virginia, 1982” from the book Passing Time by Sage Sohier Nazraeli Press, 2023.
Robert Klein Gallery – In Passing Time, photographer Sage Sohier’s rich and complex B&W environmental portraits belie a deceptively simple conceit: people at leisure outdoors. Sohier made these portraits from Maine to Florida in the early 1980’s, an era when people spent more time outside and interacting with each other than indoors, mesmerized by electronic screens. Sohier’s entrancing portraits are not just a trip down memory lane, the real treasures lie below the surface. On view through June 21st, 2024.
To read our book review, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/the-way-we-were-book-review-of-passing-time-by-sage-sohier-and-the-orange-line-by-jack-lueders-booth/
For more information, go to: https://www.robertkleingallery.com/
“Memorial Day Run, Milwaukee” 1966, from The Bikeriders by Danny Lyon, courtesy of Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
Coming next to Robert Klein Gallery – In the 1960’s, photographer Danny Lyon’s The Bikeriders placed him in the forefront of the New Journalism movement in which the photographer is immersed in and participating with the subject being documented. This work tells the story of the subversive Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club and endures as a time capsule of 1960s Americana. Presented in conjunction with the June 2024 release of the Focus Features film, The Bikeriders, written and directed by Jeff Nichols, the exhibition of gelatin silver prints will be on view from June 27th – August 31st, 2024.
For more information, go to: https://www.robertkleingallery.com/exhibitions/81-danny-lyon-the-bikeriders-38-newbury-street-suite-402-boston/overview/
“Her Hands: Portrait of Midwife” from the series In These Hands: Black Birth-Workers’ Project by Eva Woolridge, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
Leica Gallery Boston – Can You See Me? features three master photographers who grapple with issues of femininity, from birth to coming of age to aging and death: Eva Woolridge’s In These Hands: Black Birth-Workers’ Project, Rania Matar’s SHE (above), and Maggie Steber’s Madje Has Dementia. LAST CHANCE! On view through June 8th, 2024.
To read our review, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/rania-matar-maggie-steber-eva-woolridge-photographs-in-can-you-see-me-at-leica-gallery-boston/
For more information, go to: https://leicagalleryboston.com/exhibitions/
From the exhibit Moments When The Smoke Clears © Svet Jacqueline, courtesy of Leica Gallery Boston.
Coming next to Leica Gallery Boston – Documentary photojournalist Svet Jacqueline’s Moments When The Smoke Clears: Two Years of Covering the War in Ukraine will be on view from June 14th – August 18th, 2024. There will be an Opening Reception on Friday June 14th from 6:00 – 8:00pm and an Artist Talk on Saturday, June 15th from Noon – 2:00pm. Both are free and open to the public.
To register for these events, go to: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/svet-jacqueline-moments-when-the-smoke-clears-tickets-902461656107?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Carte-de-visite portrait of Harriet Hayden, one of Boston’s leading abolitionists, photographer unknown, courtesy of the Boston Athenaeum.
Boston Athenaeum – Framing Freedom: The Harriet Hayden Albums examines Black abolitionists’ private lives and social activism through the perspective of a Black woman’s photograph albums from the mid-1800s. A freed slave from Kentucky, Harriet Hayden lived with her husband on Beacon Hill and became a major stop on the Underground Railroad, helping others to their freedom. Harriet’s collected albums of carte-de visite (calling cards) were a form of community building through photography, wherein the sitters controlled their own presentation. This rare collection, curated by Makeda Best, Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Oakland Museum of California, and Virginia Reynolds Badgett, former Assistant Curator at the Boston Athenaeum, offers a new way to look at Boston’s history of Black society and activism, on view through June 22nd, 2024.
NOTE: Exhibition Lecture Beauty and Resilience: A Conversation with Deborah Willis and Makeda Best will explore African American photography and the contribution of Harriet Hayden’s albums. TOMORROW, Thursday, June 6th at 6:00pm.
For tickets, go to: https://community.bostonathenaeum.org/s/events
For more information about the exhibit, go to: https://bostonathenaeum.org/whatson/exhibitions/harriet-hayden-albums/
“Braids, Cambridge, MA” 2019, from the series Cousins by Kristen Joy Emack, courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston.
Also at Boston Athenaeum – Kristen Joy Emack’s Cousins is a longterm project of intimate portraits featuring the artist’s daughter and her three cousins, probing the rarified world of girls of color. In her sensitive, questioning and affecting B&W images, Emack explores how the cousins close relationship continues to shape them. This exhibition coincides with the Boston Athenaeum’s recent acquisition of Emack’s photographs and will be on view through August 26th, 2024.
For more information about the exhibit, go to: https://bostonathenaeum.org/whats-on/exhibitions/cousins/
To read our review of this series, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/shawn-bush-angle-of-draw-and-kristen-joy-emack-cousins-at-gallery-kayafas-boston/
“Central Alaska range, Ruth Glacier” by Alex Joseph Hansen, courtesy of the artist and Panopticon Gallery, Boston.
Panopticon Gallery – Twenty of Alex Joseph Hansen’s stunning black and white photographs of the Alaskan glacial system will converse across decades with those of the legendary Bradford Washburn in Glacier: Bradford Washburn’s Mountain Photography Meets Contemporary Counterpart. On view through July 30th, 2024.
For more information, go to: https://www.panopticongallery.com/alex-hansen
The Curated Fridge Spring 2024 Show, curated by Alexa Cushing and Connor Noll.
Also at Panopticon Gallery – The Curated Fridge 2024 Spring Show, curated by gallery directors Alexa Cushing and Connor Noll, is coming to their gallery walls. Join the artists and curators for an in-person reception TOMORROW, Thursday, June 6th from 6:00 – 8:00pm.
From the series Little Planet by Fran Gardino, courtesy of the artist and Arnold Arboretum, Boston.
Arnold Arboretum – In his solo exhibition, Fran Gardino presents two glorious series featuring photographs created across the Aboretum over the last 10 years: Little Planet, square-format images in which panoramas are curved back on themselves to create circular images that reflect the cycles of the earth and The Many Moods of the Arboretum, a series of digital photographs that have been stitched together into panoramas to show the full breadth of the landscape. LAST CHANCE! On view through June 9th, 2024.
For more information, go to: https://arboretum.harvard.edu/events-2/current-and-past-art-shows/
SOWA – Boston’s South End Arts District
“The Sea A Mirror” by Danielle M. Dean, 2023, courtesy of the artist and Abakus Projects, Boston.
Abakus Projects – Dust Collective is a local publisher formed in 2017 by Emily Sheffer that specializes in small edition, hand made books. Unfolded: Dust Collective presents five hand-made books with accompanying prints by photographers Barbara Bosworth, Danielle M. Dean, S. Billie Mandle, Alyssa Minahan and Emily Sheffer. An opening reception is planned for this Friday from 6 to 8:30pm and will be on view through July 28th, 2024.
For more information: https://www.abakusprojects.com
CAMBRIDGE
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University, Cambridge – In his award-winning project, Manifest: Thirteen Colonies, Wendel A. White selected and photographed objects with charged historic and spiritual impact on African Americans. Black and white baby dolls from a famed social science experiment, a midcentury voting machine, a lock of Frederick Douglass’ hair all gain resonance in White’s spare, naturally-lit images. As the 2021 Robert Gardner Fellow in Photography at the museum, White’s exhibition will be accompanied by a book published by the museum in conjunction with Radius Books. On view through Sunday, April 13th, 2025.
For more information, go to: https://peabody.harvard.edu/news/wendel-white-photo-exhibition-manifest-thirteen-colonies-open-harvard%E2%80%99s-peabody-museum
SUBURBS
“New Land 241” by Rodrigo Valenzuela, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography (installation view by Elin Spring).
Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester – The museum’s ongoing shows include the group show Huellas de Existence / Traces of Existence featuring Alejandro Cartagena’s “Photo Structure/Foto Estructura,” Muriel Hasbun’s “Pulse: New Cultural Registers / Pulso: Nuevos registros culturales,” with Alejandro “Luperca” Morales. Also on view, “Nuevas Tierras/New Lands” by Rodrigo Valenzuela and “Una Mexicana en Gringolandia” by Ileana Doble Hernandez. These artists explore the role of the Latin American ethos through documentary photography, the landscape, abstraction and the archive. LAST CHANCE! On view through June 9th, 2024.
From the exhibition Dry Stone No Sound of Water by Suzanne Theodora White, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
From the exhibition After the Fire: Water Damage by Lynne Breitfeller, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
Coming next to the Griffin Museum of Photography, Suzanne Theodora White’s Dry Stone No Sound of Water and Lynne Breitfeller’s After the Fire: Water Damaged each examine a transitory sense of nature and memory. Also on tap the 14th Annual Photobook Exhibition, all on view June 13th – September 1st, 2024 with a planned reception with the artists on June 22nd from 6 to 8pm.
(Featured Image) “Yorgos Z” (left) “Akalyptos A” (right) by Yorgos Efthymiadis, from the series The Lighthouse Keepers, courtesy of the artist, Gallery Kayafas, Boston, and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
And opening at the Griffin Museum of Photography a week later in June is the 30th Annual Member’s Juried Show featuring over forty photographers juried by Mazie Harris, Assistant Curator of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. A reception to celebrate the artists is planned for June 22nd, 2024 at 6pm, on view from June 20th – July 28th, 2024.
Mitch Epstein, Biloxi, MS, 2005, Dye coupler print, The Warehouse, Atlanta © Mitch Epstein
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover – Two “must see” photography exhibits are A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845 originally organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The second exhibit is Robert Frank and Todd Webb: Across America, 1955 that comes to the Addison from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Both exhibitions will be on view through July 31st, 2024.
To read our review of A Long Arc: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/a-long-arc-photography-in-the-american-south-since-1845-at-addison-gallery-of-american-art-in-andover-ma/
To read our review of Robert Frank and Todd Webb: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/robert-frank-and-todd-webb-across-america-1955-at-addison-gallery-of-american-art-in-andover-ma/
For more information: https://addison.andover.edu
Left: Todd Webb, Between Lovelock and Fernley, NV, 1956, printed 2023, inkjet print, courtesy of Todd Webb Archive. © Todd Webb Archive.
Right: Robert Frank, U.S. 285, New Mexico, 1955, gelatin silver print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by Jerry E. and Nannette Finger. © The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation.
“Addis Neger by Aïda Muluneh, 2019, from the Mirror of the Soul series, Inkjet print. Museum purchase by exchange. 2023.33.4. Peabody Essex Museum. Courtesy of the artist. © Aïda Muluneh.
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem– As part of a larger exhibition, Ethiopia at the Crossroads, the museum will be showcasing the acquisition of six large photographs by contemporary Ethiopian artist Aïda Muluneh. PEM curator at large Lydia Peabody writes, “In bold, primary colors, Aïda Muluneh’s images revisit women’s roles in Ethiopian traditions and customs. Women painted in stark whites, vibrant reds and azure blues perform a range of tasks: clothing and food preparation as well as cultural and religious practices. These photographs express what it is to be an African woman by encapsulating gender and identity as a celebration of contemporary self-expression. As the first contemporary Ethiopian artist to have her work acquired for PEM’s collection, Muluneh raises awareness of the impact of photography in shaping cultural perceptions.” On view through July 7th, 2024.
For more information: https://www.pem.org/exhibitions/ethiopia-at-the-crossroads
“Arms Crossed” 2023, from the series Beyond Reason by Amy Arbus, courtesy of The Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown.
The Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown – Photographs by Amy Arbus (above), Jo Sandman, Han Feng and Stephen Aiken (below), along with drawings by David X Levine, are featured in this group show. In her latest series, Arbus pictures circus performers poised, “in danger even, but in an exquisite arc of pain, desire, beauty, and an almost gruesome request of their own bodies to do something Beyond Reason. This rousing, eclectic show also includes fashion and costume designer Han Feng’s stunning still-life images from The Gift series; Jo Sandman’s storied experimental mixed-media work; Stephen Aiken’s An Artist, A Coyote, and a Cage, his photographs of the daring 1974 NYC performance by Joseph Beuys with a wild coyote; and Poem Drawings by David X Levine. On view from June 14th – July 16th, 2024, there will be an Opening Reception on Friday, July 5th from 6:00 – 9:00pm.
for information, go to: https://galleryschoolhouse.com/
From the series An Artist, A Coyote, and a Cage by Stephen Aiken, courtesy of The Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown.
“Wild Gatherers” by Marnie Crawford Samuelson, courtesy of the artist and PAAM, Provincetown, MA.
Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown – Marnie Crawford Samuelson has been documenting the fishing and artistic communities of outer Cape Cod since the mid-1980’s. Curated by Mike Wright, An Outer Cape Village: Photographs of Marnie Crawford Samuelson features black and white images made in the 80’s and 90’s alongside more recent portraits in both color and black and white accompanied by audio interviews of some of her subjects. There is a reception planned for June 7th at 6pm, and the exhibition will be on view through July 21st, 2024.
For more information: https://paam.org
Photo collage from the exhibit Mental Mapping by Joshua Sariñana, courtesy of the artist and UMA Gallery, Malden, MA.
Urban Media Arts (UMA), Malden – Mental Mapping, a solo exhibition of imagery by Neuroscientist, artist and writer Joshua Sariñana, blends portraits, landscapes, and cityscapes into multiple exposure prints, exploring the relationships between artificial intelligence, the brain, and social networks. On view through July, 2024.
For more information about the exhibit, go to: https://urbanmediaarts.org/galleryuma/
SPECIAL EVENT! On Wednesday, June 26th from 6:00 – 8:00pm, the gallery is hosting an art salon “Mental Mapping: The Art of Exploring Connections” featuring a ‘behind the scenes” multimedia look at the artist’s process, live music, poetry and community discussion. Light refreshments will be served.
Although free and open to the public, reservations are required. Go to: https://urbanmediaarts.org/event/mental-mapping-the-art-of-exploring-connections-arts-salon/
“Antarctica, 2024” by John Huet, courtesy of the artist and deMenil Gallery, Groton School, Groton, MA.
de Menil Gallery, Groton School, Groton – Award-winning photographer John Huet brings his antarctic photographic journey to the gallery in Crossing the Circle. On view through June 28th, 2024.
For more information, go to: https://www.groton.org/arts/visual-art/galleries
“Littoral Drift #3 (Rodeo Beach, CA)” by Meghann Riepenhoff, June 13th, 2013, cyanotype diptych on woven paper, funded by the Douglas Cox and Edward Osowdki Fund for Photography in memory of Robert A. Royce and in honor of Margaret Kent Royka, courtesy of the artist and the Worcester Art Museum.
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester – New Terrain: 21st Century Landscape Photography brings together thirty art works that highlight a range of techniques, such as 3-D printing, weaving, collage and non-traditional materials such as rusted cans or lake water to interpret photographic expression through the landscape. Organized by curator Nancy Kathryn Burns, the exhibition showcases recently acquired works by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Dread Scott and Sarah Sense, alongside works by Meghann Riepenhoff, Alison Rossiter, Penelope Umbrico, Tabitha Soren and local artists Matthew Gamber and Yael Eban. On view through July 7th 2024.
To read our review, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/new-terrain-21st-century-landscape-photography-at-worcester-art-museum/
For more information: https://www.worcesterart.org/exhibitions/new-terrain/
Aïda Muluneh (Ethiopian, b. 1974), Distant Echoes of Dreams, 2018, Edition of 7, archival digital print, Sinon Collection Fund, courtesy of the Fitchburg Art Museum.
Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg – To celebrate their expanding photography collection that now includes a large selection of pictures made by African photographers, the museum presents Africa Rising: 21st Century African Photography. The exhibit includes photographs by Zanele Muholi, Lalla Essaydi, and Aida Muluneh (above), among others whose work grapples with themes such as environmental exploitation, the aftermath of colonialism, women’s empowerment and Afro-Futurism. On view through February 23rd, 2025.
For more information, go to: https://fitchburgartmuseum.org/africa-rising-21st-century-african-photography/
ROAD TRIP!
Rhode Island
Courtesy of the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Providence, RI.
Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Providence – Guardians of Acadia features photo illustrations by Jim Bremer. Beyond the Photograph: Artificial Intelligence Photorealism & (other) Images that Fool the Eye features artists pushing the medium into the future, such as Fran Forman, Diana Nicolette Jeon and Melanie Walker among many others on view through June 14th, 2024.
Courtesy of the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts.
For more information: https://www.riphotocenter.org
Connecticut
Courtesy of the Carriage Barn Arts Center
Carriage Barn Arts Center, New Canaan – For over ten years, a group of ten artists have met every other week to discuss and critique each others photographic works from collage to portraiture, altered imagery or street photography. The exhibition and group called In/Sight features portfolios from Ann N. Brown, Pam Einarsen, Bill Gore, Emily Laux, Karen Neems, Sue Palmer Stone, Terry Tougas, Dawn Watson, Caren Winnall and Torrance York. A reception is planned for June 9th from 3 to 5pm and the exhibition is on view from June 8th through June 30th, 2024.
For more information: https://carriagebarn.org
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford – The group exhibition Styling Identities: Hair’s Tangled Histories aims to tell a story about what hair means to people from all walks of life, past to present. Within the multi-media show, don’t miss Rachel Portesi’s “The Dauntless Bureau,” recovered from the ship “Dauntless” owned by the local Colt family (yes, the gun manufacturer). Portesi has adorned the bureau with seventeen, mostly photographically-based, sculptural elements dedicated to Elizabeth Colt, who lived in the Victorian Era. A photographic self-portrait by Zanele Muholi and works by many other artists create a lively, interactive exhibit, on view through August 11th, 2024.
For more information about “The Dauntless Bureau,” go to: https://mobile.wa.yourcultureconnect.com/e/styling-identities:-hair’s-tangled-histories/the-dauntless-bureau-2023
For more information about the entire exhibit and associated programming, go to: https://www.thewadsworth.org/explore/on-view/hair/
“Nothing Happened Here #11” by Jeremy Dennis, 2016, courtesy of the artist and the Fairfield University Art Museum
Fairfield University Art Museum, Fairfield– The Landscape in Focus: Recent Acquisitions is an intimate exhibition that highlights the affecting narratives of human interference on the land, including both black and white and color works made from the 1960’s to the present day. Exhibiting artists include Adger Cowans, Jeremy Dennis, Adriana Arenas Ilian, Alen Macweeney, Bea Nettles, Andrea Robbins and Max Becher, Victoria Sambunaris, Larry Silver, James Welling, and Huang Yan. On view through July 27th, 2024.
For more information: https://fairfield.edu/museum/exhibitions/upcoming-exhibitions/landscape-in-focus/index.html
Vermont
“Ascend” (detail) by Nitashia Johnson, courtesy of the artist and the Vermont Center for Photography.
Vermont Center for Photography- Brattleboro – The 2024 Open Juried Exhibition features photographs by Jorge Ariel Escobar, Ariana Gomez, Nitashia Johnson (photo), Kellyann Petry, Mona Sartoveh, Anastasia Sierra, David Sokosh and Jacob Herrera Wachal in a show juried by Crista Dix. On view through June 30th, 2024.
For more information: https://vcphoto.org
“Outdoor Tightrope Walkers” by Eliot Fernander, 1972, courtesy of the artist and the Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT.
Shelburne Museum, Shelburne – Two shows to check out! First, A Grand Spectacle in the Great Outdoors showcases Eliot Fernander’s 1972 black and white photographs of a rare outdoor performance by Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus when the wet grounds prevented them from putting up the Big Top. Second, be sure to check out New England Now: Strange States which brings a group of multi-disciplinary New England artists together, including photographer Tara Sellios. On view through October 20th, 2024.
For more information: https://shelburnemuseum.org
“Lux” by Tara Selios, courtesy of the artist and the Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT.
Maine
“Etude #9” by DM Witman, silver photogram from hand cultured salt crystals, courtesy of the artist and the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts.
Maine Museum of Photography Arts, Portland – In the Making examines how artists employ a myriad of methods from cameraless works to sculpture or installation to examine the current state of photographic practice today. Featuring works by Jodi Colella, Susan Newbold, Cole Caswell, Jonty Sale, Sarah Stites + Joan Fitzsimmons, Karen Olson, Sal Taylor Kydd, DM Witman, Susan Murie, Carol Eisenberg and Astrid Reischwitz. Artist talks are planned for Friday June 21st and Friday July 18th from 5 to 8pm. On view through July 27th, 2024.
For more information: https://www.mainemuseumofphotographicarts.org
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