New Works #10: Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of New Works Photography Awards

Meg Escudé, Divya Murthy, Stephen Marc, Sonya Lawyer, Emilio Banuelos, LaToya Frazier, William Willson and a special presentation by winning artists from the past ten years: Tony González – Annu Palakunnathu Matthew – Terry Boddie – Tertuliano Delgado – Sheila Pree Bright – Jaishri Abichandani – Larry McNeil – Ana de Orbegoso – Don Gregorio Antón – Bonnie Portelance – Trinidad Mac-Auliffe – Rita Rivera – Angel Chevrestt – Ivonne Maria Marcial – Rodolfo Ornelas – Daniel Salazar – Pipo – Sulaiman Ellison – André Cypriano – Suzanne Kaoru Saylor – Kapulani Landgraff – Darrell Matsumoto – Andrew Ortiz – Edwine Seymour – Lisa Jong-Soon Goodlin – Gaye Chan – Hong-An Truong – Hyoungsun Ha – Ching-Wei Jiang – Felicia Megginson – Colette Fu – Keba Konte – Liliana Rodriguez – Manuel Rivera-Ortiz – Nzingah Muhammad – Michael Gonzales – Javier Carmona – Preston Wadley – Cyndi Prince

Juror: Alison Devine Nordström, Curator of Photographs, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.
Curators: Miriam Romais, Marisol Díaz

April 4 – May 19, 2007
Opening Reception: Wednesday, April 4, from 5:00–8:00pm
Closing Party: Saturday, May 19, from 5:00-7:00pm
Artist Talk
Thursday, April 5, from 6:00–7:30pm with Meg Escude, Divya Murthy, LaToya Frazier and Ana de Orbegoso
Saturday, May 19, from 4:00-5:00pm with Stephen Marc, Terry Boddie and Alison Nordström

Longwood Arts Gallery @ Hostos
450 Grand Concourse at 149th Street
Bronx, NY 10451

Download Juror’s essay HERE.

“The three award-winning artists for 2006-07, Divya Murthy, Meg Escudé and Stephen Marc, are adept at exploring the cracks in which history, a sense of home and a culture can live. Through different photographic genres, they explore diverse aspects of life and marks that time has left behind.

Divya Murthy documents the gouging of the earth in her neighborhood, as the landscape around her is demolished and razed to create a toll road. With a large format camera, she dismisses the notion of traditional pictorial landscapes and subverts that genre lead by male image-makers, weaving the highly detailed images together digitally and combining it with wood or other elements relevant to the subject matter.

As Murthy explores her homeland, Meg Escudé goes abroad in search of it – partly inspired by a typical search of her Argentine heritage, and partly due to an exasperation with the politics and consumerism of home (U.S.). What she finds is friendship, and a cultural microcosm within the circus: Circus Orlando Orfei, one of the oldest and most traditional of the circuses still traveling throughout Latin America.

On a historical journey, is Stephen Marc. Working much like a detective, Marc travels the country on a quest to track down artifacts with which to rewrite African American history and expose the institution of slavery in contemporary terms. An avid researcher of the Underground Railroad (the network of people that helped hundreds of thousands slaves escape to the north), he creates detailed digital photomontages exploring cultural identity, yet leaves the results open to visual interpretation.“ ––Miriam Romais, Curator. Excerpt from Nueva Luz, Volume 11#3

En Foco’s New Works program acts as a creative incubator, enabling artists to create or complete an in-depth, photographic series exploring themes emanating from their personal experiences, and providing the infrastructure for a professional exhibition in the New York area. Artists receive an honorarium, professional camera bags from Lowepro and tripods from Bogen.

The deadline for photographers to apply for the next New Works Photography Awards is July 2, 2007.

Special thanks to the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, the NY State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Spectral Masters Digital Imaging, Fuji Film, Lowepro and Bogen, for their support of this program.