he Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of
Arizona is pleased to present two exhibitions of work by Lorie Novak from February 17
through April 29, 2001: Lorie Novak: Photographs, 1983-2000, a career survey of prints
recently acquired by CCP; and Collected Visions: An Installation by Lorie Novak, a
multimedia project that questions how family photographs shape our memories and
relationships.
Novak has long explored the nature of the snapshot and has created innovative and
engaging ways to look at family photographs as representations of both personal and
collective memory. Lorie Novak: Photographs, 1983-2000, organized by the Center for
Creative Photography, surveys nearly two decades of the searching, resonant imagery of
artist Lorie Novak. Her signature use of projected imagery to combine and challenge the
role of photography in constructions of reality, memory and the self is showcased in this
selection of over thirty large-scale color prints recently acquired by CCP.
In Lorie Novak: Photographs, 1983-2000, she repeatedly mines her familys own
photographic history, transforming images from her childhood and related signifiers by
projecting them into three-dimensional settings—from sylvan landscapes to stark
interiors.
This exhibition celebrates the establishment of the largest public collection of the
artists work and offers a defining overview of her influential contributions to American
photography, said Trudy Wilner Stack, Curator of Exhibitions and Collections at the
Center for Creative Photography. In addition, all of Novak’s art reveals the importance
and complexity of photography’s role in family life.
Collected Visions: An Installation by Lorie Novak
Music by Elizabeth Brown, software by Jonathan Meyer and sound design by Clilly Castiglia. Stories edited by
Elizabeth Brown, Lorie Novak, and Neta Lozovsky. This exhibition was organized by the International Center of
Photography, New York, and sponsored by Shutterfly. Additional support was provided by the New York State
Council on the Arts; the NYU Center for Advanced Technology; the Eastman Kodak Company, Presentation
Technologies; and Mary Virginia Swanson.
Collected Visions: An Installation by Lorie Novak presents hundreds of family
snapshots collected since 1992 from over 350 people in a new multi-media exploration
of this culturally significant photography that shapes both memory and identity. The
images are juxtaposed with one another and combined with overlapping spoken word
and music in a dreamlike environment of dissolving projected images. The experience
conveys the psychological and emotional power of photographs and explores their
contemporary role in our everyday lives. Two computer-driven, floor-to-ceiling,
simultaneous 17-minute sequences use high-resolution digital projectors and a new
high-quality streaming media system created specifically for the project by Jonathan
Meyer. Elizabeth Browns original music is mixed with recorded voices of people
speaking about their family photographs. Novak said, What I see in these photographs
are the dreams, disappointments, joys, tensions, stereotypes, and myths of modern
culture.
Novak encourages visitors to participate in Collected Visions on the Web
http://www.cvisions.cat.nyu.edu and during three Collecting Days at CCP when visitors
can add to the project by scanning snapshots and/or writing stories about their
photographs. The website has over 2,000 snapshots in a searchable database and 150
stories posted in a virtual gallery and museum. Collected Visions on the Web will also
be accessible at a computer station in the CCP gallery.
IMAGE:
Collected Visions: An Installation
by Lorie Novak, 2000.
Computer-based installation.
Projected images 8.5 x 11 feet each,
view from ICP installation.
Courtesy of the artist.
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