Exhibition dates: December 3 - January 8, 2005
An exhibition of approximately 40 color photographs taken by American soldiers on the ground in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and organized by John Movius, the 2003 recipient of the Daniel Rosenberg Traveling Fellowship award in the Department of Photography and Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, will go on view December 3, 2004. The pictures, many of which look as if they could have been taken during the current Iraq conflict, capture a wide range of moments, from absurd to intimate to violent.
Entitled Sight Range: Photographs and Stories by Veterans of Desert Storm, the show will open December 3 and remain on view through January 8, 2005 in the Gulf +Western Gallery (main floor), located at 721 Broadway. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. through 7 p.m. weekdays, and noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Admission is free. For further information, call 212.998.1930, or visit www.nyu.edu/tisch/photo.
The Daniel Rosenberg Traveling Fellowship is a grant established by Irv and Civia Rosenberg and awarded to one graduating senior from the Department of Photography and Imaging each year to complete and exhibit a project involving travel. Movius spent the past year and a half traveling throughout the United States meeting soldiers from the first Gulf War, and collecting their snapshots of the conflict. The artist then combined enlarged versions of these snapshots with interview excerpts about the soldiers’ experiences during that time.
According to Movius, Sight Range emphasizes the power of amateur photography in times of war and seeks to reexamine Desert Storm while raising awareness of veterans’ issues, including Gulf War Syndrome. Examples of images include: Tracie Stevens’ Keith’s Day to Play,which depicts a soldier reclining in a kiddy pool surrounded by tents in the desert; Asher Abrams recording of the capture of Republican Guard soldiers against a bleak horizon line; and 16 Views from my Tank, taken by the late William Coker, which presents a grid of varied landscapes framed by the gun of his tank. Portraits of the veterans by Movius and text excerpts from interviews accompanying the photographs highlight the specific personalities and experiences of each photographer.
The Department of Photography and Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts is a four-year B.F.A. program centered on the making and understanding of images. Students explore photo-based imagery as personal and cultural expression. Situated within a university, the program offers students both the intensive focus of an arts curriculum and a serious and broad grounding in the liberal arts.