Photo/Synthesis: James Baker Hall
September 2008 – April 2009
in the atrium, galleries 1 & 3
21c Museum is proud to present Photo/Synthesis: James Baker Hall, the first
survey of photographic work by James Baker Hall, whose photographs depict the varied
landscapes and creative personalities of his native Kentucky, while foregrounding
the sensory experience of the work itself. The seventy images drawn from the collection
of the artist represent a body of work that examine Hall's fascination and experimentation
of photography since his childhood.
It has been said that James Baker Hall is both a photographer who writes and a writer
who takes pictures. This exhibition explores yet another notion, that James Baker
Hall is also a painter who makes photographs. 21c has worked closely with the artist
to realize an ambitious exhibition comprising nearly five decades of photographic
pursuits.
While Hall is perhaps best known for his more traditional photographic books such
as A Spring Fed Pond, 2000 or Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy, 2004,
he has simultaneously been creating a body of work that continues to challenge the
notion that photography is merely representational. Instead, Hall's photographs
often take on a more painterly quality such as his Orphans in the Attic
and Appear to Disappear series. Similar to painting, Hall is able to record
the experience of observation and capture the impression of a landscape or his subject.
Accompanying this exhibition, Larkspur letterpress, a longtime collaborator of Hall's,
has printed a selection of eight poems by Hall that further exemplify the artist's
mastery of diverse mediums.
About the Artist
James Baker Hall is one of the most celebrated Kentucky artists of his generation.
Born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1935, Hall studied at the University of Kentucky
under Robert Hazel among his life-long literary colleagues: Wendell Berry, Ed McClanahan,
Gurney Norman, and Bobbie Ann Mason. Hall would then go on to study at Stanford
in the 60s alongside Larry McMurty and Ken Kesey forging a lifelong passion for
writing, that resulted in a multitude of published works such as The Mother on the
Other Side of the World, Sarabande Books, 1999. During this time, he became
the close colleague of such photographers as Minor White, Richard Benson, and Ralph
Eugene Meatyard, was a contributing editor for Aperture, and lectured widely on
photography in such places as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rhode Island School of Design, the Visual Studies Workshop,
and the Minneapolis Museum of Art.
Hall returned to Lexington in 1973 to teach at the University of Kentucky as director
of the creative writing program. Prior to his retirement from teaching in 2003,
Hall was named the Poet Laureate 2001 of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Hall continues
to make images and write from his farm in Sadieville, Kentucky with his wife and
colleague, novelist Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, author of Come and Go, Molly Snow.
21c Museum would like to thank Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, Erik Tuttle, and Sarah Wylie
Ammerman for their generous time and support of the exhibition.
Blind Spot: the customized Art Car by Monica Mahoney
Auction bidding through eBay
June 2 through June 12
›
exhibition details
The Photographs of Dominic Rouse
November 17 – January 12, 2008
in the garage street level gallery
›
exhibition details
All's Fair in Art and War:
Envisioning Conflict
October 2008 – January 2009
street level gallery
›
exhibition details
Photo/Synthesis: James Baker Hall
September 2008 – April 2009
in the atrium, galleries 1 & 3
Opening reception Thursday September 4, 6pm
›
exhibition details
New Acquisitions and Highlights
Opened February 2, 2007 – ongoing exhibition
atrium gallery
›
exhibition details