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May Issue 2005
City Gallery At Waterfront Park in Charleston, SC, Features Works by Shimon Attie and Phil Moody
The City Gallery at Waterfront Park in Charleston, SC, presents Shimon Attie's, The History of Another, and Phil Moody's, Textile Towns, as a visual centerpiece of the 2005 Piccolo Spoleto Festival. The exhibitions will be on display from May 23 through Aug. 12, 2005.
Shimon Attie
Installation artist and photographer Shimon Attie engages with the lost and forgotten presence of Jews in Rome after the Holocaust in The History of Another. Using modern Rome as his backdrop, Attie projected fragments of historical photographs of Roman Jews onto the city's ruins and excavation sites. The resulting pictures conflate three distinct historical moments: that of ancient Rome, Roman Jews at the turn of the century and modern Rome with its new construction and continual efforts to conserve relics of the past. This body of photographs gives a visual identity to the presence of Jews in Rome by using archival photographs of Jewish figures as his subject with ancient Rome along with its inevitable Modern elements (lights, architecture, construction sites) as his backdrop.
Attie has traveled around the world studying, learning, and documenting his interpretations of marginalized Jewish communities. Describing his work as "a kind of peeling back of the wallpaper of today to reveal the histories buried underneath," Attie created The History of Another during a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome in 2001-2002. This is a traveling exhibition organized by The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago.
Attie has had solo exhibitions
at numerous prestigious museums internationally, including the
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (2004); Rhode Island
School of Design Museum, Providence, RI (2000); Institute of Contemporary
Art (ICA), Boston, MA (1991); Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo,
Norway (1995); and the Museum of German History, Berlin, Germany
(1994). He has also received numerous prestigious awards such
as the Visual Artist Fellowship from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation,
New York (1998), National Endowment for the Arts (1997), Visual
Artist Fellowship (1996), and the Prix de Rome Visual Artist Fellowship
at the American Academy in Rome.
Attie has received a BA from the University of California Berkeley,
a MA from Antioch University and a MFA from San Francisco State
University. A lecture by Attie will be held on May 22 at 4pm in
room 309 of the Simons Center for the Arts, College of Charleston.
Phil Moody
Phil Moody's, Textile Towns,
is the artist's most recent work relating to the legacy of the
textile industry in the Carolinas. At a time when massive changes
are being witnessed within the region's textile manufacturing,
with huge job losses and company reorganization just to remain
in business, he has taken a decidedly poetic departure with the
subject. Perhaps one might have expected a straight documentary
approach to the problems of the unemployed. Rather, Moody has
combined images and text that vacillate between concise story-telling
and impressionistic poetry. The visual work uses photographic
means, sometimes in "straight" fashion and other occasions
quite experimentally, to develop a contrast between the beauty
of color, pattern and repetition, with a stark reality within
the text. Much of the writing has been composed after interviews
with people who work, or used to, in the textile industry. The
intent is to convey a sense of the region, its history and culture
but by using challenging contemporary visual means.
The visual impact of this work is initially from its scale and
intense color. The artworks are 80" x 80", with one
at 80" x 220". They are assembled from 'tiling' 20 individual
prints, each 20" x 16". Having been printed through
patterned cloth, the finished assemblies resemble quilts. But
in contrast with a craft that exists for comfort and pleasure,
this photographic work carries a message of social content. The
text is centered on the loss of skills, continuity and allegiance.
According to the artist, "Earlier generations never had our
material wealth, yet, with the sense of pride in their manufacturing,
and community continuity, they perhaps possessed a few things
of greater value.
Born in Scotland, Moody has been a South Carolinian for over twenty
years. He has had exhibitions at the Bank of America Plaza, Charlotte,
NC (2001); Rudolph E. Lee Gallery, Clemson University, Clemson,
SC; South Carolina State Museum, Columbia, SC; New Orleans Museum
and Art Gallery, New Orleans, LA; and The National Arts Club,
New York City, NY.
Some of the awards Moody has received include the South Carolina
Arts Commission Visual Arts Fellow (2004), Charlotte-Mecklinburg
Arts & Science Council Artist Project Award (2001), and SC
Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement
of Teaching (1997). Moody is currently a Professor of Art at Winthrop
University. He will give a gallery talk on May 28 at 1pm at the
City Gallery at Waterfront Park.
According to exhibition organizer, Mark Sloan of the Halsey Institute, "Both Moody and Attie use photography in two ways - first, for its mimetic (or documentary) function and secondly, for it's capacity to memorialize its subject. Each artist has produced historically significant works that highlight aspects of our often obscured, yet shared, humanity. In a sense, each of their bodies of work represent a frozen moment that allows the viewer to contemplate important social truths."
These two exhibitions have been produced in cooperation with the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston. Sponsors of the exhibits are Mr. & Mrs. Walter Seinsheimer, Jr., Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Zucker, Spectra True Colour and Stephen Duvall Catering & Events.
For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, contact Cat Heitz, Gallery Coordinator at 843/958-6484 & e-mail at (citygallery@ci.charleston.sc.us). Contact the City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs at 843/724-7305 or at (www.piccolospoleto.com).
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