Thursday, September 11, 2025
Doors at 5:30 pm. Artist talk at 6 pm.
25 Dederick Street, Kingston, NY
On Thursday, September 11, we welcome Morgan Gwenwald and Ariel Goldberg to “Meet the Artist” night at CPW. Goldberg will speak with Gwenwald about her wide-ranging documentation of lesbian and queer grassroots organizing in New York City in the 1970s-1990s. A volunteer and coordinator at the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) since 1979, Gwenwald will share rarely before seen materials, including documentation of the 1982 Barnard Sex Conference and portraits of influential and beloved community members. Attendees will hear about Gwenwald’s practice, which includes publishing, exhibition making, constructing darkrooms, and building analogue networks for lesbian photographers to share skills and resources. Their conversation will be accompanied by visuals. This event will be live-streamed on CPW’s YouTube page at 6pm.
Join us every Thursday evening at CPW, when we host illuminating talks with local and visiting artists. “Meet the Artist” allows the public to get to know new work, to hear about artistic processes, and to meet friends and other local artists. The evening takes place at CPW’s gallery at 25 Dederick Street in Kingston, NY. It is free and open to the public. Coffee, tea, and snacks are served. “Meet the Artist” is made possible by a generous grant from the Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation.
About Morgan:
Morgan Gwenwald is one of a small group of Lesbian photographers who emerged during the early days of the gay rights movement. While in high school she talked her way into photography courses at the local university. By the time she left the BFA program she had a clear understanding that the world she wanted to portray was not welcome in the art world (nor in mainstream culture). This was an era when there were few “cross-over” artists and working professional lesbian photographers were usually not “out” and the small but growing group of out dyke photographers primarily published in their own community.
In those years of a thriving women’s and queer press her art work was featured on many covers and her documentary work filled newsletters, journals and magazines throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s. Her goal was to show the world in which she lived and the women who populated that world in personal and loving detail. Her move to New York in 1979 and long-term involvement in the Lesbian Herstory Archives opened the doors to a broader community. Early on she took up the challenge of portraying Lesbian sexuality in all its power and diversity. Her work was featured in the first and subsequent editions of On Our Backs. Her archive is an extensive documentary history of lesbians and queer activism in NYC.
About Ariel:
Ariel Goldberg is a writer, curator, and educator devoted to trans and queer lineages and lesser-known histories of photography. Goldberg’s books include The Estrangement Principle (Nightboat Books, 2016) and The Photographer (Roof Books, 2015). Their exhibition on photography’s relationship to spaces for learning, Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s was on view at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati as part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial, The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in NYC, and the Chicago Cultural Center from 2022-2024. Goldberg was a recipient of the 2020 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Book Grant and a 2024 Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellow at the New York Public Library, to support their book-in-progress on trans and queer image cultures of the late 20th century.
Goldberg has curated public programs for over fifteen years at venues including Magnum Foundation, The Poetry Project, and Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center. With Noam Parness, they co-curated Uncanny Effects: Robert Giard’s Currents of Connection (2020) at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art. Their writing on photography and culture has appeared in Lucid Knowledge: On the Currency of the Photographic Image, Afterimage Journal, e-flux, and Jewish Currents. Goldberg’s work has been supported by the New Jewish Culture Fellowship, the Franklin Furnace Fund, and SOMA in Mexico City.
Goldberg has taught photography, writing, and contemporary art practices independently and at Bard College, The New School, New York University, Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, and Rutgers University. They are a proud member of Academics Come Together-United Auto Workers (ACT-UAW) 7902. Goldberg also works independently as a Conflict Mediator.
Images © Morgan Gwenwald