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Indepth Arts News:
"Incarceration: Corrie McCluskey Explores Place as a Cultural Artifact"
2002-05-01 until 2002-05-30
Fotogalerie Objektief
Enschede, ,
NL Netherlands
Three Dutch galleries are hosting the international debut of Sonoma County-based social documentary photographer Corrie McCluskey, May through June this year. McCluskey's show, titled Incarceration, focuses on "place" as a cultural artifact-a topic she has been exploring since 1994. From probing the ordinarily off-limits and empty corridors of Alcatraz-the former US federal penitentiary in the middle of San Francisco Bay-to documenting holocaust-era internment camps and ghettos throughout eastern Europe, McCluskey's black-and-white photographs "capture a palpable ghostly presence in each space she visits," writes Lindsey Westbrook in Express magazine (February 2, 2001). "It's a subtle feeling of life-or rather the residue of past life." Incarceration (Gevangenschap) will be presented at Fotogalerie Objektief in Enschede, May 1-30; at Galerie De Opsteker in Amsterdam, May 9 - June 1; and at Fotogalerie Lichtzone in Groningen, June 5-30.
Several of McCluskey's meticulously printed, selenium-toned gelatin silver prints have previously been shown in group exhibitions, including No Exit: Images of Imprisonment, curated by Diana Gaston and Frank Yamrus at SF Camerawork in San Francisco, alongside the work of Andrea Modica, Deborah Luster, Lucinda Devlin and others. She was also awarded a week-long portfolio exhibition at the 2001 FotoFestival Naarden. Naarden is Holland's largest biennial festival, attracting 30,000 visitors.
The photos of Alcatraz were taken over a four-year period, beginning in 1994. In August and September 2001, McCluskey traveled to locations throughout the Czech Republic and Poland to document other locations of internment in collaboration with a Czech holocaust survivor and his grandson, a photojournalist. Together they visited camps and ghettos in Terezín/Theresienstadt, Auschwitz/Birkenau and Krakow, and small towns in Bohemia and Moravia where Jewish communities once thrived. She also interviewed the past Director of the State Museum at Auschwitz, a former Polish political prisoner. Images from this project-in-progress will be shown in Enschede and Groningen only, with the Alcatraz work at all three galleries. The artist will attend the openings in Amsterdam and Enschede.
About the photographer: Corrie McCluskey is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and has worked in black & white 35mm and medium format since the early 1990s. She has studied photography, art and graphic design at the University of California Berkeley and Santa Cruz Extensions and numerous other schools. She has also participated in esteemed workshops in Santa Fe, Woodstock and The School for Photographic Studies in Prague with respected photographers such as Judy Dater, Cole Weston, Antonin Kratochvil and Sam Abell. Her award-winning images have been exhibited in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Texas and elsewhere throughout the United States. She is currently finishing a book project on Alcatraz prison. Her images are represented by YourWall.com and nonstřck, Inc. in New York.
The images in these exhibitions were printed on ILFORD paper.
Additional work can be viewed at Corrie McCluskey's Premiere Portfolio at absolutearts.com or visit her website: http://www.corriemccluskey.com.
IMAGE
Corrie McCluskey
Hydrotherapy Room Hospital Alcatraz, 1999
Medium: Photography Silver Gelatin
11 x 14 inches
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