April 27 – June 16, 2019
Gallery Reception: Saturday, May 4, 4-6pm
featuring Brittney Cathey-Adams, Sophia Nahli Allison, Eyakem Gulilat, Tomiko Jones, Alma Leiva, Pixy Liao, Joshua Rashaad McFadden and Paul Mpagi Sepuya
CPW’s one-of-a-kind artist-in-residence program, Woodstock AIR, is celebrating its twentieth anniversary! Woodstock AIR was created to support photography-based artists of color, and to expand the dialogue around diversity, race and identity in the context of social justice.
CPW firmly believes that accessibility, representation and diversity are critical to contemporary discourse on photography. Pluralism and acceptance are needed in our society now more than ever. Purchasing a house with living and work space for CPW artists in 2017 was one of the biggest steps in the fulfillment of this vision since launching the Artist-in-Residence program in 1999.
The exhibition Woodstock AIR: Housed showcases some of the photographs our AIRs have photographed at our artist house — first when we rented the house in 2010-2012, then when we were able to buy it in 2017. The beautiful light in the studio, where the painter Henry Mattson once worked, is hard to resist for photographers. Again and again artists have surprised us with beautiful photographs taken at the house, none the same and each stunning examples of the powerful work created by often underrepresented artists. So far, 128 artists have participated in the Woodstock AIR program. The newest AIRs, Vikesh Kapoor and Rachel Liu, have just arrived, soon to be followed by Maha Alasaker, Lola Flash, Kei Ito, Ervin A. Johnson, Dionne Lee, Susana Raab, and Fayemi Shakur. “What takes place during an artist workspace residency is sacred,” former CPW Executive Director Ariel Shanberg wrote in 2014. We could not agree more. We see it in every residency. With the purchase of the artist house, this magic has a permanent home here in Woodstock.
Our special thanks go to the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, the Thompson Family Foundation, Howard and Ellen Greenberg, Dennis Gatto and his children Greg & Katha, and over 100 individual donors, who made the purchase of the artist house possible. And to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Joy of Giving Something Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts for their continued support of Woodstock AIR.
Please consider supporting Woodstock AIR with a donation of any size. Become a supporter of this special program.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Brittney Cathey-Adams (AIR 2017) primarily utilizes the body for discovery of self. Working in black-and-white images, her work centers itself in the idea of radiance — that light not only illuminates but that darkness defines.
Originally from the Honduras, Alma Leiva (AIR 2012) uses the absurdity intrinsic in magical realism to address the consequences of violence on the Central American people and the perpetuation of those consequences on the Central American immigrant in post 9/11 U.S.
Sophia Nahli Allison (AIR 2018) is an experimental documentary filmmaker, educator and time traveler. A native of South Central Los Angeles, she is interested in recontextualizing the past, examining the present, and reimagining the future. Through her work. she conjures the psychic space of black women while documenting the intersection of fiction and non-fiction.
Paul Mpagi Sepuya (AIR 2010) makes photographs about the act of portrait making, and the desire to look and understand the connection circuits and relationships between people. “I photograph those close to me, and I use repetition and simple formal structures to emphasize the shared emotional line that connects these friends, romantic relationships, and family.”
Eyakem Gulilat (AIR 2010) reconstructs specific memories from his past in an ironic representation that is simultaneously playful and serious. By reinterpreting the past he seeks to collapse the space between his experience as a child growing up in Ethiopia and his presence in America today.
Pixy Liao (AIR 2010) challenges stereotypes of a male-female relationship by asking questions about gender roles and the meaning of relationships. Why does a man have to be a certain way? Why should a woman be a certain way? She creates multi-layered portraits that are “complicated, always changing, and full of possibilities.”
Joshua Rashaad McFadden (AIR 2018) explores African-American male identity, masculinity, notions about the father figure, and the photographic archive, by providing a frame of reference that articulates the identities of Black men.
Tomiko Jones (AIR 2017) creates loose narratives that unfold in sculptural video installations and questionably fictional photographs. Linked to the identity of place in social, cultural and geographical terms, her work explores transitions in the landscape with particular attention to public lands.
Images in banner (from left)
© Eyakem Gulilat, Memories of My Father, 2010, from the series Memories, archival pigment print, CPW Permanent Print Collection 2011.011
© Alma Leiva, Celda #12, 2012, from the series Celdas/Prison Cells, chromogenic color print, CPW Permanent Print Collection 2014.011
© Brittney Cathey-Adams, Drape, 2017, archival pigment print
Image top
© Pixy Liao, Concave vs Convex, 2010, digital c-print
EXHIBITION SCHEDULE AND LOCATION
CPW’s three exhibitions Just Beyond the River. A FolkTale by Daesha Devón Harris, Making the Invisible Visible: Ruben Natal-San Miguel, and Woodstock AIR: Housed will be on view through June 16, 2019. CPW galleries are free & open to the public Thursday – Sunday, 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please note that special hours apply during the holidays. Educational tours are available upon request. CPW is located at 59 Tinker Street, Woodstock, New York 12498.