Matt Black – American Geography / Jerry Berndt – Beautiful America / #Protestsgoviral

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‍MATT BLACK
AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY

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23 SEPTEMBER 2020 – 3 JANUARY 2021
HOUSE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Matt Black is from California’s Central Valley, an agricultural region in the heart of the state. His work has explored the connections between migration, poverty, agriculture, and the environment in his native rural California and in southern Mexico. He has traveled over 100,000 miles across 46 U.S. states for his project The Geography of Poverty. Other recent works include The Dry Land, about the impact of drought on California’s agricultural communities, and The Monster in the Mountains, about the disappearance of 43 students in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. Both of these projects, accompanied by short films, were published by The New Yorker.

78 exhibits from these trips form the focus of the exhibition curated by Ingo Taubhorn together with the photographer, which will be presented as a worldwide premiere from 25 September 2020 to 3 January 2021 at the Haus der Photographie of the Deichtorhallen Hamburg.

For the past four years, Matt Black has wondered about an alternate title for his documentary project The Geography of Poverty. Since 2014, the work has taken him on four cross-country trips over 80,000 miles, photographing communities in 46 states. »It could have just as easily been called The Geography of Power,« Black says, soon after returning from his fourth trip, which lasted nine months. »It’s something much more complicated than economics; it’s about social power. Who gets their needs met and who doesn’t?«

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 12.7% of Americans — or 40 million people — live in poverty. To Black, poverty is not really a question of economics but rather a lived experience of power. But how do you make visible something ingrained in the very fabric of our society?

He received the W. Eugene Smith Award in 2015. In 2016, he received the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and was named a Senior Fellow at the Emerson Collective. In 2018, he again received a Robert F. Kennedy Award for his work in Puerto Rico. His work has also been honored by the Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the Center for Cultural Innovation, and others. He lives in Exeter, a small town in California’s Central Valley. CURATOR
Ingo Taubhorn, Curator at the House of Photography

PUBLICATION
AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY, edited by Magnum Photos, 68 pages, 80 photos. 290 x 580 mm, English.

EXHIBITION DESIGN
Yolanda Cuomo Design supported by Bobbie Richardson and Luca Mclaughlin

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‍JERRY BERNDT
BEAUTIFUL AMERICA
23 SEPTEMBER 2020 – 3 JANUARY 2021
HOUSE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

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The American photographer Jerry Berndt (1943–2013) documented the period between the 1960s and 1980s in America like no other photographer. By combining photojournalism with documentary and street photography, he succeeded in presenting a unique view of American society over a span of thirty years.

Precisely because Berndt was part of the American protest movement, he not only persuasively visualizes central issues of recent American history such as the civil rights movement, the rights of African-Americans, patriotism, homelessness, as well as the vehement protests against the Vietnam War, racism, and nuclear power. Against a dull, dreary American cityscape, he presents the social and cultural living conditions of people who are overshadowed by a deep melancholy. The exhibition Jerry Berndt: Beautiful America, curated by Sabine Schnakenberg in cooperation with the Jerry Berndt Estate, will be on view in the House of Photography from 25 September 2020 to 3 January 2021.

Until the 1980s, Berndt consistently followed political conflict and systematically portrayed the spectrum of American people and urban landscapes, from the middle and working classes to the residents of America’s often ignored ghettos. With series on the anti-Vietnam movement in the late 1960s, which he personally participated in, and on homelessness in America in the early 1980s, he dealt with issues that examine a country’s unresolved conflicts. Unpretentious and precise, he photographed scenes of everyday life in America that subtly reflect conflicts: shopping centers, diners, parking lots, and cars as well as beauty pageants and parades.

His works from this period show how Americans presented themselves culturally and socially, and at the same time reveal the foundation of America’s changing urban infrastructure. He visualizes an important, uncomfortable transition phase in American history and highlights the literal and ironically broken beauty of the United States.

The exhibition JERRY BERNDT - BEAUTIFUL AMERICA, curated by Sabine Schnakenberg in cooperation with the Jerry Berndt Estate, shows on the one hand how Americans presented themselves culturally and socially, while at the same time revealing the foundation of America's changing urban infrastructure. Berndt visualizes an important, uncomfortable transitional phase in American history and highlights the literal and ironically broken beauty of the USA. CURATOR
Dr. Sabine Schnakenberg, curator of the collection at the House of Photography/Deichtorhallen Hamburg

PUBLICATION
The book »Jerry Berndt. Beautiful America«, edited by Maik Schlüter, 216 pages, 97 illustrations, is already available at our bookstores. 38 Euros

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#PROTESTSGOVIRAL
IMAGES OF ACTIVISM ON INSTAGRAM
23 SEPTEMBER 2020 – 3 JANUARY 2021
HOUSE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

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Since their emergence on Twitter in 2007 and their use on Instagram starting in 2010, hashtags have become the universal tagging tool in image-based social media. For the first time, they made it easy to filter and thus find posts. Since they can be used by anyone regardless of hierarchy, hashtags enable a broad audience to make public statements and to have direct access to information. Apart from restrictions related to income, gender, and ethnicities, they offer a way for interests to gain visibility and feedback. The desire to form collectives and easily launch campaigns has recently turned hashtags into effective slogans and has catapulted them from the purely digital realm onto the streets.

The exhibition format #ProtestsGoViral developed by the House of Photography ties in with the Jerry Berndt and Matt Black exhibitions by addressing social problems and encourages visitors to reflect on the importance of hashtags in current photography focused on activism. It recognizes the posted images as documents of their time and sees the use of hashtags as a phenomenon that is already part of the current history of photography. This media revolution is democratizing documentary photography and making it one of the most important means of communication.

#ProtestsGoViral is based on a selection of viral hashtags on Instagram, the most popular image-based online platform in the United States. The posts shown are updated by the minute, in keeping with the fast pace of social media posts. This compilation thus offers direct insight into various pressing areas of political activism in the United States.

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‍CONCEPT
Ingo Taubhorn, curator at the House of Photography, and Paula Michalk, curatorial assistance at the House of Photography

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https://www.deichtorhallen.de/en

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