Agnes (gallery)
Encyclopedia
Agnes was a Birmingham, Alabama
photography
gallery from 1993 to 2001. Shawn Boley, Jon Coffelt
and Jan Hughes opened the gallery with the mission of attempting to raise awareness of social issues — such as cancer
, AIDS
, death and dying
, the environment
, homelessness
, ethics
, racism
, classism
, imprisonment
— through photojournalism
, film
, video
, poetry
, and book arts
. Controversial, Agnes was picketed on several occasions, one of which resulted in a USA Today
article on December 5, 1994.
Agnes worked closely with Video Data Bank
in Chicago Illinois for short film/vido screening which included work by Sadie Benning
, Jim Cohen, Ana Mendieta
and Susan Share among many others.
, Pinky Bass
, Sadie Benning
, Ruth Bernhard
, Kevin Bubriski
, Dan Budnik
, Clayton Colvin
, Paul Caponigro
, Timothy Ely
, Karen Graffeo
, James Herbert (director)
, Jenny Holzer
, Lee Isaacs
, Janice Kluge
, O. Winston Link
, Spider Martin
, Julie Moos
, Hermann Nitsch
, Ed Ruscha, Mary Ann Sampson
, Jack Spencer
, Maggie Taylor
, Arthur Tress
, Thomas Tulis
, Jerry Uelsmann
, Marie Weaver
and Randy West (photographer)
.
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
gallery from 1993 to 2001. Shawn Boley, Jon Coffelt
Jon Coffelt
Johnny Lee Coffelt born is an American artist who lives and works in Manhattan in the Financial District of New York City. Coffelt paints, sculpts, sews, makes book arts and curates art exhibitions.-Background:...
and Jan Hughes opened the gallery with the mission of attempting to raise awareness of social issues — such as cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, death and dying
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
, the environment
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
, homelessness
Homelessness
Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...
, ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, classism
Classism
Classism is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes and behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper classes at the expense of the lower classes...
, imprisonment
Incarceration
Incarceration is the detention of a person in prison, typically as punishment for a crime .People are most commonly incarcerated upon suspicion or conviction of committing a crime, and different jurisdictions have differing laws governing the function of incarceration within a larger system of...
— through photojournalism
Photojournalism
Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism...
, film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
, poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and book arts
Artists' Books
Artists' books are works of art realized in the form of a book. They are often published in small editions, though sometimes they are produced as one-of-a-kind objects referred to as "uniques"....
. Controversial, Agnes was picketed on several occasions, one of which resulted in a USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
article on December 5, 1994.
Agnes worked closely with Video Data Bank
Video Data Bank
Video Data Bank is an international video art distribution organization and a resource in the United States for videos by and about contemporary artists...
in Chicago Illinois for short film/vido screening which included work by Sadie Benning
Sadie Benning
Sadie Benning is a video maker, visual artist, and musician.She first made her name in the early 1990s as a teenage video maker from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Raised by her mother in inner-city Milwaukee, Benning left school at age 16, primarily due to the homophobia she experienced...
, Jim Cohen, Ana Mendieta
Ana Mendieta
Ana Mendieta was a Cuban American performance artist, sculptor, painter and video artist who is known for her "earth-body" art work....
and Susan Share among many others.
Notable exhibits
- Melissa SpringerMelissa SpringerMelissa Springer is an American photojournalist whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Aperture, Elle, Forbes, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Southern Living, The Village Voice and House & Garden.Springer was one of the first...
's "Julia Tutwiler Prison Series" was Agnes' first exhibit. After eight years and 77 exhibitions the gallery closed in 2001. Alexandre Glyadelov's "Homeless in Bosnia" with Médecins sans FrontièresMédecins Sans Frontières' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...
was the gallery's last exhibit.
- Agnes worked with Visual AIDS striving to increase public awareness of AIDSAIDSAcquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
through the visual arts. Agnes hosted its first "World AIDS DayWorld AIDS DayWorld AIDS Day, observed December 1 every year, is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. Government and health officials observe the day, often with speeches or forums on the AIDS topics. Since 1995, the President of the United States has made an...
" in 1992 with "Day Without ArtDay Without Art-Origins:Day Without Art began on December 1, 1989 as the national day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis. To make the public aware that AIDS can touch everyone, and inspire positive action, some 800 U.S...
" commemorated annually on the first day of December.
- In 1995 and again in 1997 Agnes gave solo exhibitions to Volker Seding. Seding was primarily known for his 40 years of photographing zoos around the world and for gradually changing the thought patterns of environmental designers who govern zoo design.
- In 1998, Janice KlugeJanice KlugeJanice Kluge is an American artist who specializes in large and small scale sculpture. She hold a BFA with honors from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and an MFA for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kluge is Professor Emeritus of sculpture and drawing at the University of Alabama...
was part of the three person exhibition, "White Light." - "UpSouth" partially funded by the Andy WarholAndy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the ArtsNational Endowment for the ArtsThe National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
was curated and organized by Anne ArrasmithAnne ArrasmithAnne Arrasmith is an American artist and curator who lives and works in Birmingham, Alabama. She co-founded and operates along with Peter Prinz the not-for-profit Space One Eleven. Arrasmith was a student of Edith Frohock while at University of Alabama at Birmingham.She and Peter Prinz founded...
and traveled to several venues across Birmingham, AL in one day, including Space One Eleven, Birmingham Civil Rights InstituteBirmingham Civil Rights InstituteBirmingham Civil Rights Institute is a large interpretive museum and research center in Birmingham, Alabama that depicts the struggles of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s...
, the Visual Arts Gallery of University of Alabama at BirminghamUniversity of Alabama at BirminghamThe University of Alabama at Birmingham is a public university in Birmingham in the U.S. state of Alabama. Developing from an extension center established in 1936, the institution became an autonomous institution in 1969 and is today one of three institutions in the University of Alabama System...
, and Agnes. It showed the work of artists Emma Amos and Willie Birch and writer bell hooksBell hooksGloria Jean Watkins , better known by her pen name bell hooks, is an American author, feminist, and social activist....
, as well as Ann Benton, Priscilla Hancock Cooper, Karen GraffeoKaren GraffeoKaren Graffeo is an American artist based in Birmingham, Alabama. While specializing in photography, Graffeo is also a choreographer and installation artist. Early in her photography career, she worked as Jerry Uelsmann's assistant and model...
, Janice KlugeJanice KlugeJanice Kluge is an American artist who specializes in large and small scale sculpture. She hold a BFA with honors from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and an MFA for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kluge is Professor Emeritus of sculpture and drawing at the University of Alabama...
, Lee IsaacsLee IsaacsLee Isaacs is an American photographer, living and working in Birmingham, Alabama.Isaacs studied pinhole photography with Pinky Bass. He has worked both with commercial and art photography. He works with photography seminars and teaches classes and workshops across the US.He has involved himself...
, Mary Ann SampsonMary Ann SampsonMary Ann Sampson is an American artist living and working in Ragland, Alabama. Sampson is a Book artist, specializing in miniatures and broadsides most of which are uniques or one-of-a-kinds. She explores the book as a means of expressing visual ideas that stem from recollections of personal...
, Jess Marie Walker and Marie WeaverMarie WeaverMarie Weaver is an American artist who specializes in printmaking, book arts, painting, and graphic design. Weaver earned a B. A. from the University of Vermont and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University....
.
Artists
Agnes artists list included: Sara Garden ArmstrongSara Garden Armstrong
Sara Garden Armstrong is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. Armstrong creates sculptures, paintings, drawings from miniature to wall size, artist's books, multimedia artworks involving computers sound and light, and constructs permanent installations in atrium spaces...
, Pinky Bass
Pinky Bass
Pinky M. M. Bass is an American photographer, known for her work in pinhole photography.Bass, a resident of Fairhope, Alabama, has exhibited at a number of museums including the Ashville Art Museum, Birmingham Museum of Art, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta,...
, Sadie Benning
Sadie Benning
Sadie Benning is a video maker, visual artist, and musician.She first made her name in the early 1990s as a teenage video maker from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Raised by her mother in inner-city Milwaukee, Benning left school at age 16, primarily due to the homophobia she experienced...
, Ruth Bernhard
Ruth Bernhard
Ruth Bernhard was an American photographer.-Early life:Bernhard was born in Berlin and studied at the Berlin Academy of Art from 1925–27. Bernhard's father, Lucian Bernhard, was known for his poster and typeface design.-Photography career:In 1927 Bernhard moved to New York City, where her...
, Kevin Bubriski
Kevin Bubriski
-Life and career:Bubriski was born in North Adams, Massachusetts. He attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, graduating in 1975. He worked as a photographer for nine years in Nepal and has also photographed trips to India, Tibet, and Bangladesh....
, Dan Budnik
Dan Budnik
Dan Budnik is an American photographer noted for his portraits of artists and photographs of the Civil Rights Movement and Native American life.Born in 1933 in Long Island, New York, Budnik studied at the Art Students League of New York in the early 1950s...
, Clayton Colvin
Clayton Colvin
Clayton Colvin is an American artist and Curator of Contemporary Art who lives and works in Birmingham, Alabama. He received a BA in Art History from New York University in 1999 and an MA Ed. Art Education from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2003...
, Paul Caponigro
Paul Caponigro
- Photography career :Caponigro was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied with Minor White and has been awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships and three grants from the NEA. His best known photograph is Running White Deer....
, Timothy Ely
Timothy Ely
Timothy C. Ely is a contemporary American painter, graphic artist and craftsman, known for creating single-copy handmade books as art objects....
, Karen Graffeo
Karen Graffeo
Karen Graffeo is an American artist based in Birmingham, Alabama. While specializing in photography, Graffeo is also a choreographer and installation artist. Early in her photography career, she worked as Jerry Uelsmann's assistant and model...
, James Herbert (director)
James Herbert (director)
James Herbert is an American painter and director most known for directing a series of classic music videos for the band R.E.M.. He has also made over forty short films, including John Five and Jumbo Aqua , and directed four independent features: Scars , Speedy Boys , Rabbit Pix and Abandoned...
, Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer is an American conceptual artist. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.-Education:...
, Lee Isaacs
Lee Isaacs
Lee Isaacs is an American photographer, living and working in Birmingham, Alabama.Isaacs studied pinhole photography with Pinky Bass. He has worked both with commercial and art photography. He works with photography seminars and teaches classes and workshops across the US.He has involved himself...
, Janice Kluge
Janice Kluge
Janice Kluge is an American artist who specializes in large and small scale sculpture. She hold a BFA with honors from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and an MFA for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kluge is Professor Emeritus of sculpture and drawing at the University of Alabama...
, O. Winston Link
O. Winston Link
Ogle Winston Link , known commonly as O. Winston Link, was an American photographer. He is best known for his black-and-white photography and sound recordings of the last days of steam locomotive railroading on the Norfolk & Western in the United States in the late 1950s...
, Spider Martin
Spider Martin
James "Spider" Martin was an American photographer known for his work documenting the American Civil Rights Movement....
, Julie Moos
Julie Moos
Julie Moos is a Canadian photographer and art writer.Moos' work was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and curated by Lawrence Rinder...
, Hermann Nitsch
Hermann Nitsch
Hermann Nitsch is an Austrian artist who works in experimental and multimedia modes.Born in Vienna, Nitsch received training in painting during the time he studied at the Wiener Graphische Lehr-und Versuchanstalt. He is called an "actionist" or a performance artist...
, Ed Ruscha, Mary Ann Sampson
Mary Ann Sampson
Mary Ann Sampson is an American artist living and working in Ragland, Alabama. Sampson is a Book artist, specializing in miniatures and broadsides most of which are uniques or one-of-a-kinds. She explores the book as a means of expressing visual ideas that stem from recollections of personal...
, Jack Spencer
Jack Spencer
Jack Spencer is a self-taught American photographer.Spencer was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi and his first love was music, performing in rock bands making a recording. He is probably best known for his series, Native Soil that featured deep sepia tones combined with deep-South imagery...
, Maggie Taylor
Maggie Taylor
Maggie Taylor is an artist who works with digital images. She won the Santa Fe Center for Photography's Project Competition in 2004. Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States and Europe and is represented within the permanent collections of several galleries and museums...
, Arthur Tress
Arthur Tress
Arthur Tress is a notable American photographer born on November 24, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. He is well known for his staged surrealism and exposition of the human body.- Education :* Abraham Lincoln High School, Coney Island, New York* B.F.A...
, Thomas Tulis
Thomas Tulis
Thomas Tulis is an American photographer and painter living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. He was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee.Tulis lives a very simple life....
, Jerry Uelsmann
Jerry Uelsmann
Jerry N. Uelsmann is an American photographer.Uelsmann was born in Detroit, Michigan. When he was in high school, his interest in photography sparked. He originally believed that using a camera could allow him to exist outside of himself, to live in a world captured through the lens...
, Marie Weaver
Marie Weaver
Marie Weaver is an American artist who specializes in printmaking, book arts, painting, and graphic design. Weaver earned a B. A. from the University of Vermont and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University....
and Randy West (photographer)
Randy West (photographer)
Randy West is a noted American fine art photographer, perhaps best known for his distinctive and avant-garde use of the photographic medium, as seen across several series of his work *...
.
External links
- Visual AIDS
- Day Without Art
- UpSouth by bell hooksBell hooksGloria Jean Watkins , better known by her pen name bell hooks, is an American author, feminist, and social activist....
, Emma AmosEmma Amos (painter)Emma Amos is a postmodernist African-American painter and printmaker.-Early life:She was born in America's South on March 16, 1938, in Atlanta, Georgia and is of African descent....
and Antoinette Spanos Nordan, University Press, University of Alabama, Birmingham, 1999, pp 70–73