Binding Light: photography and its relationship with the book

AMHERST, Mass. – The UMass Amherst Libraries Special Collections and University Archives invite the public to a panel discussion Binding Light: photography and its relationship with the book, on Thursday, September 15, 2016, from 4–6 p.m. in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, Lower Level, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Five photographers from the Five Colleges and the Pioneer Valley will discuss photography’s relationship with the book. The topics will range from the overall historical context of the photo book to each individual artist’s inspirations and processes.  

From the earliest days of its history, photography has built a long standing relationship with the book. From William Henry Fox Talbot’s Pencil of Nature, published in 1844, to today’s print-on-demand technology, artists have experimented with visual language of the photograph. As words are arranged to create infinite meanings from authors, images are similarly sequenced and juxtaposed to create a different form of narrative. Five artists will share their perspective on the medium, discussing that which inspires them and their approach to book making, and how this fits into the larger perspective of the photo book.
 
Paola Ferrario received a BFA in Photography, San Francisco Art Institute ’86 and an MFA in Photography, Yale University ’88. Since then, she has completed projects in Italy, Guatemala, Turkey and the United States. She has received several awards and fellowships, including the Friends of Photography/Calumet Emerging Photographer award in 2000 and the Paul Taylor/Dorothea Lange Prize from Duke University in 2001, Puffin Foundation Grant in 2003, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography in 2004 and Harnish Visiting Fellowship at Smith College 2005–11 and 2016–17. Her work has been collected by several museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Ferrario is the author of 19 Pictures, 22 Recipes (Emdash studio, St. Louis, Missouri 2012). She has published criticism in Art in America and Photograph magazines.
 
James Gehrt is a fine art photographer and imaging specialist residing in Western Mass. From 1999-2006 Gehrt was manager at the photo conservation lab, Chicago Albumen Works (CAW). While at CAW he worked with the negatives of some of photography's most important creators, including Walker Evans, Carlton Watkins, and Lazlo Maholy Nagy.  In 2007 Gehrt worked as the digitization coordinator at the Mount Holyoke College Library. He was a National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education Fellow in both 2009 and 2010. Gehrt received his MLIS from Simmons College in 2014, where he was also honored with the Dr. Estelle Jussim Award in Photographic Studies.  Gehrt was selected as digital project lead at Mount Holyoke College in 2015.
 
Gehrt continues to carry a camera with him, building a collection of thousands of images from everyday life that document the objects and locations he visits. He has produced seven self-published titles over the past eight years. In 2014, his artist book, Source, was acquired by the Smith College Library’s Mortimer Rare Book Room. Gehrt received the 2016 UMass Fine Arts Center Artist in Residency Grant, resulting in the current Hampden Gallery exhibition and book, The Weight of Air.
 
Justin Kimball, has a B.F.A. in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design ’85; and an M.F.A. in photography at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture ’90, is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Photography, the Aaron Siskind Individual Photographers Fellowship, and a grant from the John Anson Kittredge Educational Fund at Harvard University. His photographs have appeared in DoubleTake, Harpers, pdn (Photo District News), Photo Metro, and Picture magazines. He is the author of Where We Find Ourselves (Center for American Places, 2006) and Pieces of String (Radius Books 2012).

Kimball’s work can be found in numerous photographic collections, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Portland (Oregon) Museum of Art, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Kimball has taught photography for more than twenty years at colleges and universities, including the Rhode Island School of Design, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Orange Coast College, and Amherst College, where he is currently an associate professor of art.
Anthony W. Lee is an art historian, critic, curator, and photographer. As a critic and scholar, he writes about American photography and modernist painting in the period between 1860 and 1960. As a photographer, he documents ethnic and immigrant communities. Lee teaches a series of lecture courses on art since the French Revolution and seminars on photography before and after World War II. Many of his seminars have resulted in exhibitions curated by students.
 
Lee is the recipient of the Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art, given by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, and the Cultural Studies Book Prize, given by the Association of Asian American Studies. He is founder and editor of the acclaimed series Defining Moments in American Photography.
Stephen Petegorsky, artist and freelance photographer, was born in New York City, and has lived in the Northampton, Mass. area for almost 40 years.  His work has been exhibited in collections throughout the United States as well as in Denmark, Chile, Germany, and Montreal.
 
He received his B.A. ’75 from Amherst College and an M.F.A. in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design ’80.  He has taught at Smith College, Hampshire College, the University of Connecticut and Amherst College. Petegorsky has won many awards, including the World Health Organization Photography Competition “Images of Health and Disability” award, 2002; thePolaroid International Photography Awards: Winner, Fine Arts/Americas, 2001; and a Northampton Arts Council Grant in 1998,1990,1984, and 1983. He is the author of The Meadows (Mawaga Press, 2015).
 
The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
 
Alison Király
Library Development & Communication
W.E.B. Du Bois Library
University of Massachusetts
154 Hicks Way
Amherst, MA 01003-9275
413-545-6156