September Issue 1999
Guilford College Art Gallery Presents Photographic Works by David Spear
A series of black and white photographs are on display at Guilford
College Art Gallery in Greensboro, NC, in the exhibition, Visible
Spirits: Recent Photographs by David Spear. The exhibition
will contiune through Oct. 15.
In 1995 Spear exhibited his photodocumentary project, The Neugents:
Close to Home, at Guilford College. This series, and an eponymous
book first published in 1993 by the Jargon Society, chronicled
the lives of his tobacco-farming neighbors in Madison, NC. Spear's
most recent series of large-format photographs depicts people
the artist encountered while traveling and living in Mexico, where
he went seeking inspiration during an artistic slump in 1997.
Overwhelmed with what he saw, he decided to travel throughout
the entire country, and last year made the decision to move there.
In this new series, the artist continues to be fascinated by people closely connected to the land. "Today Mexico is changing rapidly," says Spear. "Technology, corporate production facilities, and money are moving there at an unprecedented pace....As this dynamic change unfolds, much of Mexico clings to a cultural past closely aligned to land, living with those still ancient mysteries of their Indian ancestors and living with a true connectedness to the natural world."
"Many of these people loom in my mind as spirits,"
he continues. "They stay with me sometimes and haunt me.
I think of them as visible spirits."
After graduating in 1961 from Guilford College, Spear returned
to his hometown of Madison to work for The Messenger, the
town's weekly newspaper. After a twenty-year career there, culminating
in his becoming the editor and publisher, Spear sold the paper
to pursue other interests, primarily photography.
A 1992 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Spear's photographs
are in the permanent collections of museums across the nation,
including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the New Orleans
Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Art in Houston.
Twenty of the photographs featured in the current exhibition were donated recently to the permanent collection of Guilford College Art Gallery by Dalton L. McMichael.
For additional information please check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or contact the Gallery at 336/316-2438.
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