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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Event and Calendar Listing: Art Exhibitions/Photography/Film
Contact: Nina Sazevich, Public Relations
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Photo credit: Mike BrodieMike Brodie: The 2008 Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers
2008 Winner announced for The Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers
An Inside View of the Train-hopping Youth of AmericaExhibition at SF Camerawork: April 3 - May 24, 2008
Opening: Thursday, 3 April, 2008 from 5 to 8 PMSAN FRANCISCO–SF Camerawork is proud to announce the 2008 recipient of The Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers. Through the generosity of Glenn and April Bucksbaum of The Baum Foundation, this $10,000 cash grant honors a talented and innovative photographer at a pivotal moment in the development of his or her career. This prestigious award is presented to a promising American photographer who has not yet had a comprehensive one-person museum exhibition. It is the largest national award among grants available in photography, and is the only award in the United States to single out ‘emerging’ photographers for support.
“We are very pleased to announce the recipient of the fifth Baum Award, Mike Brodie, who was chosen from an impressive group of nominees from across the country,” says Glenn Bucksbaum, President of The Baum Foundation. “We hope this award will provide Mike with support to do his creative work.”
Mike Brodie’s images are of the train-hopping youth of America who are, Brodie says, “one of the most important, overlooked, and temporary underground cultures of modern times.”
"The Baum Award goes right to the heart of SF Camerawork’s commitment to supporting exciting new work by emerging artists,” says Sharon Tanenbaum, Executive Director of SF Camerawork. “We are delighted to host The Baum Award and thrilled that Mike Brodie was selected as the 2008 award recipient. His fresh images portray a rare and intimate point of view."
Mike Brodie documents youth living on the edges of society, in images that are raw but not hopeless. A 22-year old photographer currently living in Philadelphia, Brodie calls himself “the Polaroid Kidd,” because until recently he shot only in Polaroid film on cameras he acquired at thrift shops. Brodie is now using 35mm film; his two current series of photographs are entitled The Rockaway Summer and Boys & Girls of Modern Days Railways.When asked about his future plans, Brodie says, “I just want to migrate for the next few years, following warm weather and photographing the train-hopping youth of America.” Brodie’s previous work was a series of portraits of people who, he says, “were once inhabitants of a small beachside community in Bugress, Maine. Most being adopted children and middle class runaways. But their little shanty homes were giving the town a bad image and were leveled to make room for high-rise condos. So I guess the handful of Polaroids I have of these people would be the only true documentation of the diaspora of this once thriving group of people.”
Chuck Mobley, Curator at SF Camerawork, places Brodie’s work in the larger context of artistic practices: “Mike’s work reinvigorates the tradition of documentary or ‘street’ photography with a social conscious. His approach to his subject matter exhibits a certain kind of sensitivity and joie de vivre. Given our times, the quest for freedom that Brodie and his friends are seeking is heartening. I’m glad Mike is along for the ride to capture it.”
Critic Vince Aletti says of Brodie's work: "Even if you’re not intrigued by Brodie’s ragtag bohemian cohort—a band of outsiders with an unerring sense of post-punk style—the intimate size and warm, slightly faded color of his prints are seductive. His portraits have a tender incisiveness that is rare at any age."
Glenn and April Bucksbaum of The Baum Foundation established The Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers in 2001. The Award winner is selected by a panel of jurors led by Chuck Mobley, Curator at SF Camerawork. The 2008 jury included Bill Arning, Curator, MIT List Visual Arts Center; Susette S. Min, assistant professor, Asian American Studies and Art History, University of California, Davis; Chuck Mobley, Curator, SF Camerawork; Lawrence Rinder, Dean of Graduate Studies, California College of the Arts; and Moira Roth, Eugene E. Trefethen, Jr., Chair Art History, Mills College. The jurors reviewed the many submissions for the 2008 Baum Award and met in late January at SF Camerawork’s gallery to choose this year’s winner.
Artists are nominated for the award by 25 curators of contemporary art and photography from across the U.S. who each recommend two artists. These50 photographers are then invited to submit their work for review by the jurors. Members of The Baum Foundation do not participate in the selection of the nominators or jurors who choose the Award winner.
The Baum Foundation created the award out of the conviction that artists contribute in powerful ways to the health and vitality of our society, and that artists who have the support and resources necessary to pursue their creative work are essential for a dynamic cultural life. Previous award winners include Deborah Luster (2001), Luis Gispert (2003), Katy Grannan (2004), and Lisa Kereszi (2005).
Jurors for the 2008 Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers
Bill Arning, curator, MIT List Visual Arts Center
Bill Arning has been curator since 2000 at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, where he has organized Cerith Wyn Evans--Thoughts Unsaid, Now Forgotten . . . (2004), AA Bronson's Mirror Mirror (2002), Son et Lumière (2004), and, with co-curator Ian Berry, America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler (2006). As director and chief curator of New York’s White Columns from 1985 to 1996, Arning organized the first New York exhibitions for many significant artists of the period and was a frequent writer on art for Time Out New York, The Village Voice, Parkett, and Art in America.
Susette S. Min, assistant professor, Asian American Studies and Art History, University of California, Davis
Professor Min received her Ph.D. from Brown University. Prior to this, she was at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University and was Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at The Drawing Center in New York City. Min was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English at Pomona College. Her research interests include Asian American Literature, Ethnic American Literature, Asian American Art, contemporary art, and visual culture.
Chuck Mobley, curator, SF Camerawork
Chuck Mobley is the Curator at San Francisco Camerawork. He is editor of Camerawork: A Journal of Photographic Arts and has written for Sculpture, Spot, and Contemporary magazines. He has curated several highly praised exhibitions, including Agitate: Negotiating the Photographic Process, Katsushige Nakahashi: The Depth of Memory, and There is Always A Machine Between Us.
Larry Rinder, dean of graduate studies, California College of the Arts
In 2004 Larry Rinder was appointed dean of graduate studies at California College of the Arts. Formerly the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator of Contemporary Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; he was chief curator of the 2002 Whitney Biennial. Prior to his position at the Whitney, Rinder was founding director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts. From 1988 to 1998, he worked at the Berkeley Art Museum (BAM) in a variety of positions including curator of 20th-century art and curator of the museum's MATRIX program, an ongoing series of contemporary art exhibitions.
Moira Roth, Eugene E. Trefethen, Jr., Chair Art History, Mills College
An internationally recognized writer, curator, and lecturer, Moira Roth has curated numerous groundbreaking exhibitions, and edited and contributed to The Amazing Decade: Women and Performance Art in America 1970-1980 (1983), Rachel Rosenthal (1997), and Difference/Indifference: Musings on Postmodernism, Marcel Duchamp, and John Cage, with commentaries by Jonathan D. Katz, was published in 1998. Among Roth’s awards and honors are an honorary PhD from the San Francisco Art Institute (1994); and the Frank Jewett Mather, Jr. Critic’s Award (lifetime achievement), College Arts Association (2000). In 2006 Roth was recipient of the Annual Recognition Award by the Committee on Women in the Arts of the College Art Association (CAA). She was chosen for excellence in art and leadership in the world of art.
The public is invited to the opening reception for the artist’s exhibition at SF Camerawork on Thursday, April 3, 5:00-8:00 PM. Exhibition dates: April 3 to May 24, 2008.
The exhibition is on view Tuesdays – Saturdays 12-5 p.m. at SF Camerawork, 657 Mission St., Second Floor. Admission is $5.00; $2.00 for students and seniors; free to Camerawork members. For more information, the public should visit www.sfcamerawork.org or call 415.512.2020.
Support for The Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers and for the accompanying exhibition has been provided by The Baum Foundation.
JPG images can be requested electronically. Please contact Nina Sazevich, Public Relations, at (415) 752-2483 or nina911@pacbell.net.
About SF Camerawork
Founded in 1974, SF Camerawork encourages emerging and mid-career artists to explore new directions in photography and related media by fostering creative forms of expression that push existing boundaries. Throughout its history, SF Camerawork has nurtured artists, mentored youth and helped make San Francisco a destination for the exploration of photography as an artist’s medium. Its exhibitions are nationally recognized as a focal point for innovation, a pacesetter for new trends in the medium and a launching pad for the careers of young artists. With three galleries and an education center at its new centrally located facility, SF Camerawork is the only non-profit organization in the Bay Area with an exhibition space and educational programs focused exclusively on contemporary photography and related visual image media. It is an accessible venue for people to view exhibitions, meet artists, participate in educational programs, peruse photographic publications, and gather for lectures, screenings, portfolio reviews, and discussions.
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