Earth With Meaning Opens September 15 – December 17
EARTH WITH MEANING
the photographs of Alan Cohen
After completing a degree in nuclear engineering at NC State and studying The Equator at Mitad del Mundo, Ecuador, 1999 thermodynamics at Northwestern, Alan Cohen pursued a career in photography instead. Concentrating on places where the fragmentary physical remnants of historical and natural events are still visible—like vestiges of the Berlin Wall, remains of Holocaust sites, boundary lines, meteor impact craters, ruins of fortresses, abandoned colonial buildings—Cohen has documented “the earth of our past as a record of memory, not as an act of witness.” Earth with Meaning presents a major retrospective of Cohen’s starkly moving work, filling both of the Gregg’s main galleries with carefully composed images revealing the scars of history.
This project was supported by the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources. Also made possible through the generous contributions of Susan Annable, Bruce Brittain, Robert Burger, Sharon Cohen, Grace Drease, Annie and Lewis Kostiner, Bruce Mackh, Sandro Miller, Ann Rothschild, David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation, Jonathan Walsh, Susan Walsh and Vanessa Wilcox.
Also this fall at the Gregg
All events are free and open to the public and held at the Gregg Museum (2nd floor Talley Student Center, 2610 Cates Avenue) except the September 23 writing workshop, which will be held at the McKimmon Center, 1101 Gorman St. (corner of Western Blvd.), Raleigh.
Thursday l September 22 – 6-8pm Opening Reception
Earth With Meaning: the Photographs of Alan Cohen.
Friday l September 23 – 1-4pm McKimmon Center, Rm 232 Writing Workshop –Image and Value: Down-to Earth Writing, facilitated by Dr. Jim Clark in conjunction with Earth With Meaning: the Photographs of Alan Cohen (Space is limited to 20 participants and registration is required- -please contact Hilary Kinlaw, Program Assistant, Gregg Museum, hilary_ kinlaw@ncsu.edu to sign up).
Wednesday l October 12 – 6pm Film Screenings
Three short documentaries on photographers Aaron Siskind, Harry Callahan, and William Eggleston.
Thursday l October 27 – 6pm Panel discussion Image and Meaning: Challenging History & Photography Moderated by NC State Professor of English Literature John N. Wall (www. southphotography.blogspot.com), the panelists include a range of major figures in the world of photography: Brooks Jensen (publisher and editor of the journal LensWork and author of Letting Go of the Camera: Essays on Photography and the Creative Life); Tom Rankin (Director of Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies and author of Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta); Shannon Johnstone (associate professor of Studio Art at Meredith and Critical Mass Top 50 two years running); Frank Konhaus (founder of KONTEK Systems, Inc. and co-director of Cassilhaus artist residency and exhibition program); Burk Uzzle (LIFE Magazine’s youngest photographer and former president of Magnum Photos); and Allen Thomas, Jr. (manager of Thomas & Farris P.A. and Chair, CAM Raleigh Foundation Board).
Tuesday l November 8 – 6pm Film M.C. Richards: The Fire Within
A funny, inspiration-provoking encounter with the influential Black Mountain College poet-potter investigates the ur-source of creativity. Her art-of-many-genres wove together community, agriculture, craft and spiritual ideas. Richards regarded the end of life as only another fulfilling adventure, “living toward dying, blooming into invisibility.”
Thursday l November 17 – 6pm Gallery Talk
Alan Cohen, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, returns to the Gregg to talk about his starkly beautiful black and white photographs in Earth with Meaning.
The Gregg Museum of Art & Design strives to maintain the best accessibility standards possible. If you need access accommodations or have suggestions for improving accessibility at the Gregg, please call 919-515-3503 or e-mail hilary_kinlaw@ncsu.edu prior to your visit.
