The Lewis Center for the Arts hosted a two-day symposium that gathered photo-based artists, writers, curators, historians, and students to explore the poetics of photography, its instability, and its latent potential.
Poetic Record: Photography in a Transformed World took place on October 10 and 11, 2024, in the Wallace Theater in the Lewis Arts complex on the Princeton University campus and was organized by Deana Lawson, Princeton University’s Dorothy Krauklis ’78 Professor of Visual Arts, in collaboration with Jeff Whetstone, Director of the Program in Visual Arts, and James Welling, Lecturer with the Rank of Professor of Visual Arts.
The symposium coincided with the Fall 2024 issue of Aperture magazine, “Arrhythmic Mythic Ra,” an issue that refracts themes of family, social history, and the astrophysical through the eyes of guest editor Deana Lawson and features many of the artists whose work is on display for the exhibition accompanying the symposium.
Day one kicked off with panel discussions featuring Lawson, Welling, Whetstone, David Benjamin Sherry, Richard Mosse, and Matthew Schreiber, An-My Lê, Trevor Paglen, and A.L. Steiner. Moderators included Devin Fore and Whetstone. Day two began with graduate students from various universities presenting their work followed by panel discussions featuring Leslie Hewitt, Lisa Sutcliffe, Jenny Calivas, Sara Cwynar, Lucy Kim and moderator Monica Bravo.
The Poetic Record: Photography in a Transformed World exhibition is on view October 1 through December 5 in the Hurley Gallery at the Lewis Arts complex and is co-curated by Lawson and Michael Famighetti, editor-in-chief of Aperture magazine. Twenty-three artists are showing work in the exhibition, including David Benjamin Sherry, Jenny Calivas, Sara Cwynar, Seiichi Furuya, Paul Graham, Balarama Heller, Arthur Jafa, Liz Johnston Artur, Deana Lawson, Ken Light, Sally Mann, Louis Mendes, Boris Mikhailov, Richard Mosse, Trevor Paglen, Lucy Raven, Stefan Ruiz, Matthew Schreiber, Allan Sekula, Lieko Shiga, Taryn Simon, James Welling, and Jeff Whetstone.
An additional exhibition curated by James Welling, Exceed Your Vision, is on view through October 30 in the CoLab at Lewis Arts complex and features work by recent Princeton alumni including Max Diallo Jakobsen, Benji Freeman, Pauli King, Sydney Mieko King, Erin Macanze, Lane Marsh, Lauren Olson, Kristen Pardo, Collin Riggins, Luke Shannon, and Titi Sodimu.
Poetic Record is a Princeton Humanities Council Magic Project funded through a David A. Garner ’69 Magic Grant and presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts. The symposium is cosponsored by Princeton’s Collaboratorium for Radical Aesthetics and Council on Science and Technology.