2020 Senior Thesis Exhibitions
2020 Visual Arts Grants
DUE April 14 – Follow Instructions Below:
Right Coast/Messengers Photographs by Susannah Ray & Kota Sake
Right Coast/Messengers
Photographs by Susannah Ray & Kota Sake
Curator: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock
The Lipani Gallery
July 10–October 10, 2019
Reception: TBD
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
fordhamuniversitygalleries.com
*The galleries are open from 9 am to 9 pm every day except on university holidays
Fordham University is proud to present a new two-person exhibition of photographs in our Lipani Gallery by Susannah Ray and Kota Sake. Upon immediate inspection, the images by these two photographers could not be any more different in terms of content, style, process, or presentation. However, upon closer inspection, a certain resonance begins to emerge between the two bodies of work.
Both evidence a clear dedication to exploring and documenting their respective topics over an extended period of time. As well, each selection of photographs examines how we utilize our free time, pursue our pleasures, and engage with our passions and pastimes. On the most direct level, both bodies of work clearly have something to do with water; however, none of these possible interpretations quite nails their connection down solidly. This ambiguity should serve as an invitation to come to visit the gallery and see the individual bodies of work, as well as an enticement to ponder their linkages.
This exhibition could be seen as a classic summer gallery show aimed towards pleasing the crowds—in this case, with surfers and animals. Nevertheless, beneath the initial hook of breezy, summer reading are numerous aspects of a more nuanced and provocative nature.
website
Susannah Ray
Right Coast
In fall of 2004, following my growing obsession with maritime weather models, cold-water wax, and 7mm neoprene mittens, I began documenting surfing in New York City. My life as I knew it had succumbed to my constant urge to surf, and it became clear to me that my photography would suffer from neglect if I did not begin to document the new passion that occupied most of my waking thoughts and many of my dreaming ones.
The project title, Right Coast, is a nickname for the East Coast that not only indicates its location on the continental US, but also asserts an underdog’s dreams of superiority. Surfing on the right coast, particularly in New York City’s Rockaway Beach, lacks most of the lifestyle and allure of West Coast surfing. Yet making up for the dearth of good weather, consistent waves, and beautiful surf spots is a community that has a surfeit of heart, dedication, and soul. Or in a word, aloha.
In the fall of 2012, less than a year after I concluded this series, Hurricane Sandy devastated Rockaway Beach, forever altering the landscape and our relationship to the sea. These photographs have become a testament to halcyon days, to a way of life lost, and to a life regained.
Kota Sake
Messengers
Chances are that at any given moment millions of digital pictures of unbearably cute animals are being uploaded to the Internet for viewing and pleasurable consumption. Second probably only to adorable baby pictures, cute animal pictures no doubt pervade our consciousness as we go about surfing the Internet, paying bills, and generating various status updates.
So, in looking at Kota Sake‘s traditional, gelatin silver photographs of animals one must ask why they seem so unfamiliar, resolutely not cute, and at times tragically strange. Considering that we are constantly exposed to such creatures online, in calendars, and in physical form at the zoo, it is an admirable achievement to transform something seemingly familiar into something otherworldly and mysterious.
Suspended in the netherworld of zoo tanks, these creatures glide, drift, sink, and loiter, isolated and mostly indifferent to our presence. There are no Technicolor creatures singing cheerful or cautionary songs for our education and pleasure. Theses creatures exist purely outside of our realm of understanding.
Images: Susannah Ray, On the Jetty, 2005 (L), Kota Sake, Messengers, 2019 (R)
For further information on the exhibition please contact:
Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock
Guest Photographer Susannah Ray: 2/26/19, 11:30, SL24G
2019 Senior Exhibitions
New Visual Arts Department Faculty Books
彦島 Hikoshima
by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock
About the Book
The images in this book are selected from a body of work made in the south of Japan over the past ten years. I first started photographing on the small island of Hikoshima in the city of Shimonoseki during visits to see my wife’s family. I wanted to walk where she had walked, gradually discovering a sense of place through observation. After my son was born I continued my walks; however, with him strapped to my chest, my camera in one hand, and a baby bottle in the other. My son and I now walk the island together and he often points out things to me that he thinks would make interesting images, in addition to making his own images with a point-and-shoot camera. It is enormous fun, as well as a means for him to connect to the place in which he was born.
Pictures of: Verticals and Horizontals
by Anibal Pella-Woo
About the Book
“History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past”
John Berger, “Ways Of Seeing”
“An individual is no match for history.”
Robert Bolaño, “By Night in Chile”
These images were sourced from over 38,000 images that were rescued or recovered from used, low capacity compact flash memory cards. The cards were purchased online in 2017 and 2018.
Zoom
by Mark Street
About the Book
Painting and bleaching the surface of a 35mm film print of a Dutch/French thriller reveals another level of psychological complexity.
167 Days Until Graduation: Highlights from the Senior Seminar
Documentary Photography: Italy 2019!
Urban Landscapes
Urban Landscapes at the The Lipani Gallery
November 1 – December 10, 2018
Reception: December 10, 5-7
Students in the Urban Film Video Production class present work that deals with the city as a confounding, inspiring and complicated place. Soundwalks open up urban space in acoustic ways, short films about specific locales and found footage reveries offer a visual counterpoint. A class trip to Chinatown is traced in a group project and in individual responses to the gathered footage. Work by Josh Castillon, Samantha D’Onofrio, Gus Fonte, Arber Hajdarmataj, Mary-Kate Magee, Caroline Martin, Sallie Murray, Dan Nasta, Gillian Nelson, Samantha Norman, Eliza Putnam, and Jessica Ruffini
Lipani Gallery Chronicles the Paths of Fordham Alumni
(ANDREW BEECHER/THE OBSERVER)
Lipani Gallery Chronicles the Paths of Fordham Alumni
By EMMA SEIWELL
Contributing Writer
Currently showcased in the Lipani Gallery at Fordham Lincoln Center (FLC) is photography Artist-in-Residence Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock’s exhibition “100 Photography Alumni.” Apicella-Hitchcock has taught photography at FLC for 21 years and has seen a lot of talented students come through the darkroom. This exhibit facilitated an opportunity for these students to showcase their work post-graduation. Some of the contributors graduated last year, others 20 years ago. Alumni submitted a diverse collection of images ranging from urban candids to picturesque landscapes, making for interesting juxtapositions once placed next to one another.
The abstract arrangement of photos was accomplished quite simply. The postcard-sized images were randomly shuffled and placed on the walls. The outcome was a combined vision of life as seen through the eyes of these 100 talented individuals. Spanning two decades, multiple countries, various formats and numerous subjects, the hundreds of photos tacked onto the white walls of Lipani Gallery maintain a curious sense of unity.
The famous French street photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, once said: “A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.” By looking at each photo in this exhibition, one can grasp which things in life “take” these photographers. They do not attempt to control the things around them for their benefit. Instead, they surrender to the mayhem of the world and, even further, embrace it.
There is something bound to catch every viewer’s eye. Carrie Mahoney’s nostalgic black-and-white portrait of a young girl with tiger face paint pouting on a swing might incline one to reminisce about childhood. Charlotte Canner’s snapshot of a fallen wooden structure with the words “Buried Alive” painted above its deteriorating doorway leaves one to ponder what these words are referring to or how they got there.
Some images simply please the eyes, such as Aubrey Stallard’s photo of figures dancing. The contrasting colors and patterns in her photograph make for a very engaging composition. Each image in this exhibition is an open-ended, wordless story that leaves any sensitive viewer in a state of wonderment.
Viewers get the chance to take in fleeting moments and disregarded places that would be lost among the mundaneness of everyday life had it not been for their documentation. The exhibition will be on display until the end of October with a public reception on Oct. 17 from 6-8 p.m. “100 Photography Alumni” encourages its viewers to contemplate ordinary phenomena in a more confrontational context. One might realize these occurrences are not so ordinary after all.