'Personalities' Exhibition Debuts January 17 in Palm Desert

The following was submitted for publication on behalf of the Palm Springs Art Museum:

Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Desert, The Galen and the Faye Sarkowsky Sculpture Garden will host the exhibition Personalities: Fantasy and Identity in Photography and New Media starting January 17 through May 3, 2015. Using the diverse aesthetic traditions of portraiture as points of departure, this exhibition explores the representational power of photography from its origins in the 19th century to its digital forms in the present.

The featured artworks are from the museum’s permanent collection as well as on loan from artists and private collectors. Even in its earliest examples, photography was a potent tool that could alter the identity of a sitter, giving the subject status, beauty, fame, or the appearance of power. This exhibition begins with strong modern portraits by August Sander and Edward Steichen, and considers Hollywood glamour photography which transformed average women and men into starlets and beacons of masculinity, as stunningly illustrated by George Hurrell.

Image makers such as Richard Avedon, Weegee and Michael Childers soon upended midcentury notions of celebrity portraiture, and from the 1960s on, Diane Arbus, Lewis Morley and Arthur Tress brought a raw vision to documentary photographs that existed between fantasy and reality. By the end of the 20th century, conceptual photographic approaches showcased the medium’s ability to make fiction look like truth.

Contemporary artists draw from these aesthetic histories, sometimes using digital formats. Work by Marina Abramovic, Zoe Crosher, Jen Davis and Tomoko Sawada reveal identities to be unstable and rooted as much in history and social expectations as in personal self-imagining. Other artists who compose this diverse photographic history include Brian Bress, Keith Carter, Jona Frank, Katy Grannan, Pirkle Jones, Milton Rogovin, Jono Rotman, Wang Qingsong and Pat York, among others.

This exhibition is organized by Palm Springs Art Museum and funded in part by the museum’s Contemporary Art Council, LEF Foundation, Helene V. Galen and CAC’s Silver Sponsor Pamela Smallwood. Exhibition season sponsors are Dorothy and Harold J. Meyerman and Arlene Schnitzer.

Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Desert, The Galen now offers free admission every day, made possible by Helene V. Galen’s generous donation that spans the next five years. For more information about the museum and the exhibition, please visit www.psmuseum.org or call (760) 346-5600.