“I buried my negatives in the ground in order that there should be some record of our tragedy.” — Henryk Ross
Henryk Ross — Children talking through fence of central prison on Czarnecki Street prior to deportation, 1940-1942.
This is the final weekend to see two powerful exhibitions in Portland. Together, Memory Unearthed at the Portland Art Museum and The Last Journey of the Jews of Lodz at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education offer an extraordinarily rare glimpse of life inside the Lodz Ghetto through the lens of Polish Jewish photojournalist Henryk Ross (1910–1991).
From PAM: “At great risk, Ross documented the brutal realities of life under Nazi rule, culminating in the deportation of tens of thousands to death camps at Chelmno and Auschwitz. With the hope of preserving a historical record, Ross buried more than 6,000 of his negatives in 1944. When he returned for them after Lodz’s liberation, Ross found that more than half of the negatives had survived, and he spent the rest of his life sharing the images.”
Minor White, Portland, 1939, gelatin silver print, Courtesy of the Fine Arts Program, Public Buildings Service, U.S. General Services Administration. Commissioned through the New Deal art projects, public domain, L42.2.13
Fresh this week is a new rotation of Minor White’s classic early images from Oregon — which were commissioned as part of FDR’s New Deal programs — and made before White rose to Photo God status by helping to found Aperture alongside Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and others.
A Harley Cowan image from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Also, this month’s Brown Bag Lecture Talk series is on May 16th from noon to 1 p.m, a presentation of the Portland Art Museum’s Photography Council sponsored by Pro Photo Supply. Portland photographer Harley Cowan will talk about his large-format work documenting nuclear production sites.
“I grew up in Richland, Washington next to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation,” Cowan wrote, and his interest led to six years working in nuclear industry. Now a practicing architect as well as a photographer, Cowan travels to “historically significant but largely unrecorded sites in the Pacific Northwest in order to create photography eligible for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER).”
“They continue to follow strict guidelines for black & white, large format, film photography. As a contemporary photographer, it is an intriguing starting point.”
“This is a photo of my mother and father. This photo is very old. Everything about my father remains in my mind and will be with me as long as I live. Everything he has said to me is still with me to this day. My mother is always on my mind and I miss her so so much. People have one life, and a life without parents means nothing.” – Amir Hassan, Lincoln, Nebraska 2017
A couple fascinating photography events are coming up next week at the Portland Art Museum, both of which will involve the documentation of history and its effect on the present day.
On Wednesday, April 18, Jim Lommasson will talk about his emotional still life images and the personal histories of objects brought to America by refugees fleeing wars in Iraq and Syria. His lecture is titled “What We Carried: Fragments from the Cradle of Civilization,.”
“Lommasson photographs these precious items — family snapshots, an archaeology book, heirloom china dishes, the Quran — on a white background, asking their owners to write directly within the open space left in the prints and elaborate upon each object’s significance,” wrote Zemie Barr of the Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts. “The resulting images are as beautiful as they are heartbreaking, providing viewers with only a small glimpse of what each person has lost while serving as a poignant reminder that, as Jim asserts, “we must take responsibility for the aftermath of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as at home.”
The event will be free to the public, in the Fields Ballroom of the Mark building, from noon until 1:00 p.m.
And on April 20, an all-day symposium on Minor White will celebrate the iconic co-founder of Aperture and his formative work in Oregon. Co-organized by the Princeton University Art Museum, the symposium will bring together “curators, art historians, artists, and archivists from around the country for a free, day-long discussion about White’s early photographic work in Oregon, his influences, and his legacy.”
The event will be live-streamed on the museum’s YouTube channel for those unable to attend.
As Portland photographers continue to navigate the developing art scene in a changing city, a Photolucida event at DISJECTA on Thursday promises to be an enlightening gathering of views on the here and now. I’ll see you there! From the invitation:
“Join us for an evening discussion with some of the key figures in Portland’s photographic community. We want to know…what is happening now and what is next? What do you feel is working and what is missing?
Lend your voice and learn along with us! Stick around after the one-hour panel for a social hour to continue the conversation. Beverages and snacks will be provided! Free and open to the public!” Continue reading “The State Of Photography in Portland Today – A Panel Discussion”
