Photography: A Focus on the Figure

The Mishkin Gallery at Baruch College will present the exhibition, Photography: A Focus on the Figure, from Wednesday, November 22 to Friday December 15, 2017. An opening reception will be held on Tuesday, November 21, from 6:00-8:00 p.m.

From images celebrating our individual or collective identity to narratives of war and displacement, photography jolts our imagination and our world view. The power of photography includes its ability to function as a visual narrative that can document social, cultural, and historical events, and also to retain the impact of its “message” for generations. Gilles Peress’s photographs, including his Rwandan Hutu refugees waiting for medical attention in Benaco, Tanzania in 1994, document war and trauma around the world. Peress’s images not only provide historical records, but they also provide a lasting emotional impact. In a 1997 interview, Gilles Peress talked about the purpose of his work: “I’m gathering evidence for history, so that we remember.” In addition, Peress’s photographs also fight false accounts or “fake news” by providing photographs of actual – and sometimes dangerous – events. Women dominate as subjects in many of the images, especially in the case of the works of female photographers such as Fran Antmann’s Funeral Procession, San Pedro la Laguna, Guatemala and Candace Scharsu’s Female child soldier branded by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels.