Past Exhibits

Intended Consequences, photographs by Jonathan Torgovnik, is an powerful series of environmental portraits made in Rwanda of the women who were brutally raped during the genocide and the children they bore from their assailants. On October 28 from 4:30 to 6 p.m., there will be a panel discussion on the topic in Robertson Hall, Bowl 016. A public reception will follow the panel discussion in the Bernstein Gallery at 6 p.m.

The Bernstein Gallery presents a solo exhibition of paintings by Kate Javens from her renowned "Named For…" series. Many of these works come from her critically acclaimed show last year at the Blanden Art Museum in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

With what Picture magazine called "the grit of a true documentary photographer", Kyle Cassidy spent two years and 15,000 miles crisscrossing the country meeting American gun owners, photographing them in their homes and asking them all one question: “Why do you own a gun?” The Bernstein Gallery’s exhibition shows 37 photographs and interview quotes out of over 200, a collection that resulted in a book, Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes, published by Krause books in 2007. This honest, sometimes quirky collection of images has been called "Riveting", by the Washington Post, "A fair picture of who owns guns" by Field and Stream, and won praise from outlets as diverse as WisconsinPublic Radio, the Library Journal, Penthouse, and Guns and Ammo.

Human trafficking is a global criminal enterprise affecting hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. It exists in every country and in many guises, fueled by extreme poverty, cultural norms that devalue and commodify women and children in particular, and also by a seemingly insatiable demand for exploitive sex and cheap labor. Kay Chernush's photographs are an attempt to put a human face on the statistics and headlines, to tell the stories of modern-day enslavement and the journey towards freedom. On February 24 from 4:30 to 6 p.m., there will be a panel discussion on the topic in Robertson Hall, Bowl 016.

Panelists are: Kay Chernush, Photographer; E. Benjamin Skinner, Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Kathy Maskell, U.S. Advocacy Director, Love146; Moderator, Stanley Katz, Professor of Public and International Affairs and Director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Woodrow Wilson School. A public reception will follow the panel discussion in the Bernstein Gallery at 6 p.m.

The Bernstein Gallery is pleased to present “Imagined Landscapes”, photographs by Ernestine Ruben. The exhibition runs from December 15, 2008 through February 13, 2009. There will be a reception open to the public on December 19 from 6 to 8 pm. With this latest body of work on the Chinese landscape, Ruben continues to experiment with new concepts and techniques as they apply to the medium of photography.

The Woodrow Wilson School and the Educational Testing Service collaborate on a photo essay on achievement gaps in New Jersey’s 30 Abbott School Districts. The photography of Randall Hagadorn illustrates the continuing challenges we face to give every child an opportunity for an equal education.

Randall Hagadorn has been a professional photographer for over 40 years. His images have appeared in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times and the original Life magazine, as well as every major daily U.S. newspaper. Hagadorn has created photographs for more than 75 Fortune 500 Corporations and major foundations. His work received a Best in Show award from the New Jersey Press Association and a Bronze Anvil from The Public Relations Society of America, an annual award for the single outstanding special publication by a corporation or institution in America.

The Woodrow Wilson School will present a public panel discussion titled “The Promise of Abbott v. Burke" at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 4, in Bowl 016, Robertson Hall. The focus of the discussion will be on the implications of the New Jersey court decision on school funding. Panelists will include Thomas Corcoran, Visiting Lecturer of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School and Director of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education at Columbia University; Nathan Scovronick, Director of the Woodrow Wilson School’s Undergraduate Program and lecturer of public and international affairs; and Deborah Yaffe, journalist and the author of "Other People's Children: The Battle for Justice and Equality in New Jersey's Schools." Stanley Katz will moderate. A reception will immediately follow the discussion.

Daniel Heyman, painter and printmaker, has concentrated his art on making images about the conflict in Iraq, specifically the abuse and torture of innocent Iraqis at Abu Ghraib and other prisons. Recently, he has begun to listen to testimony from Iraqi victims of violence at the hands of Blackwater Security Guards in Baghdad on September 16, 2007. For this work, Heyman has traveled to Jordan and Turkey where he has been part of face to face interviews with over 25 former detainees, and over 10 Blackwater victims. During preliminary interviews with their American lawyers, Heyman sits in as a witness, making the portraits of the men while they give their testimony, incorporating that testimony directly into his artwork. When working on copper plates to produce the series of drypoint prints presented in the exhibition, Heyman must write the testimony backwards so it is legible when printed. Other than the addition of some simple color, the work is never touched after the interviews, to heighten the direct effect of being in the interview, bringing back to the United States each Iraqi victim's own words.

On view in the Bernstein Gallery are 8 drypoint prints from Heyman’s Abu Ghraib series on loan from the Princeton University Art Museum. These works are a museum gift of William J. Salman, Class of 1955. Also on view are 7 prints from the Blackwater series on loan from the artist.

Michael Kamber has been working as a photo-journalist in Iraq for the last several years, becoming chief photographer for the Baghdad Bureau of the New York Times in 2007. The emotionally charged photographs on view were taken when the photographer was on patrol with US soldiers. While Kamber was initially supportive of the invasion, he has watched what he describes as a “slow-motion descent into what I can only call madness.” On exhibition are seventeen 16 x 20 inch color photographs.

The Bernstein Gallery is pleased to present “Art of the Times (times four)”, a series of political works by four artists whose work has appeared in various publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Yorker Magazine. The Op-Ed drawings of Douglas Florian, Brad Holland, Frances Jetter and Mark Podwal begin during the Nixon era and Watergate, and continue right up through the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The exhibition will be on view from April 7 through August 31, 2008. An artist panel discussion will take place at 4:30 on Thursday, May 1 in Bowl 016 on the lower level of Robertson Hall, adjacent to the Bernstein Gallery. A reception will follow in the Gallery at 6 pm. The public is invited to both events. Gallery hours are 9 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The Bernstein Gallery is pleased to present “Looking at the Sequential Dialetic”, several pages from Michael LaRiccia's upcoming graphic novel, The Death of Black Mane and the Feared Self. The exhibition runs from February 25 through April 4, 2008 with a reception on February 29 from 6 to 8 p.m. to which the public is invited. Gallery hours are 9 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

"Diminishing Returns" is a series on poverty across America by the master social photographer, Larry Fink. The recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships as well as two NEA grants, he has had one man shows at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Musee de la Lausanne Photographie in Belgium, and the Musee de l’Elysee in Switzerland, amongst others. He shows in galleries regularly in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, France. In 2002, he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan.

The Bernstein Gallery is pleased to present "Burmese Days", photographs by Mary Cross. The exhibition runs from December 3, 2007 through January 11, 2008 with a closing reception on January 11 from 5 to 7 p.m. to which the public is invited. The work on view is a continuation of Ms. Cross's continued photographic investigation into different cultures of the world.

Olivia Victoria Andrzejczak, 2007 graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, guest curates this exhibition on the violent conflict in Chechnya which began in 1994. The large format photography is by Adam Borowski who was named the Honorary Polish Consul for the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria by President Abdul-Halim Sadulayev in 2006. Borowski is a veteran participant of the Polish Solidarity movement and regularly contributes to American radio broadcasts about his experiences. His photo-documentary work on Chechnya’s critical humanitarian situation has been shown in Warsaw, Copenhagen, London and Brussels.

Philani is a community-based child health and nutrition NGO operating in informal settlements outside Cape Town, South Africa. An estimated 750,000 people live in these areas in simple cement houses or make-shift dwellings made of corrugated iron, wood and plastics; many overcrowded and without water and sanitation. Since 1979, under the Founder and Medical Director, Dr. Ingrid le Roux, Philani has been working to alleviate these problems, assisting thousands of mothers, pregnant women and children through a network of community outreach workers and nutrition centers. Because a woman who is financially independent has a better chance of providing care for her children, an income-generating art and craft program is also an integral part of Philani’s efforts to help destitute families. The photographs were taken by the artist, Joan Needham, and the curator, Kate Somers, who spent the month of February, 2007 at Philani, teaching women from the community linoleum block printing. In addition to the photography, there will be on view linoleum block prints made by artists in the community. The combined photographs, artwork, and text tell the story of one health care model working in developing countries.

Princeton artist, Susan Hockaday, is a fine art photographer whose work focuses on the patterns and structures of the natural world. Recently, her work has delved more deeply into man made threats to the fragility of our natural world: the destruction of open space; the degradation of waterways; the flow of chemical pollutants across the landscape; etc. While her photographs of nature have not been manipulated themselves, many from her recent series have overlays of ink and other media to introduce the notions of invasion and encroachment. She shows with SOHO20 Gallery in NYC and her work is in the collection of the Princeton Art Museum, among others.

Poster art created by Israeli and Palestinian artists reveals and documents the issues central to the Middle East conflict. The posters represent a truly public art produced for the people, expressing sentiments and opinions for the purpose of inspiring and motivating. The posters in this exhibition, from the private collection of Dana Bartelt, include both award-winning images by internationally acclaimed artists as well as those which were previously forbidden to be printed. Some were mass produced while others are original paintings and drawings. All speak in their own visual and written languages and tell a story of struggle, survival, and the hope for lasting freedom and peace.

After Utopia is a series of visual investigations of the legacy of socialist cities. A familiar landscape emerges, from the Balkans to eastern Germany, the Baltic and central Asia: hundreds of thousands of prefabricated apartments and standardized concrete constructions housing millions of people. "After" appears tentative here: the materiality of socialism continues to shape the life of millions today as it did during the Cold War. Mehilli's exhibition includes a wall-size photo collage of recent urban transformations in Tirana, Albania, confronting recent changes in the physical environment of the city--illegal settlements, alterations, the municipality-sponsored coloring of the city--with the stubborn legacy of the material culture of socialism. Smaller works investigate particular urban moments: prefabricated housing; crumbling concrete; urban decay; war in Sarajevo; and post-socialist landscapes in Prague, Berlin, and the outskirts of Budapest. Mehilli is a PhD student in history at Princeton University.

Cathy Stein Greenblat, Professor Emerita of Sociology at Rutgers, has produced photo-essays on long term care and end of life care for the dependent elderly. Her largest project is ALIVE WITH ALZHEIMERS, which has resulted in a book published in 2004 by the University of Chicago Press, and a traveling exhibition. These pictures are positive images of the possibilities for better institutional health care for the elderly. The work ranges from facilities in California to Japan, a country she highlights for its enlightened approach to quality care for its aging population.

Photo-documentary work on drugs and addiction in the US. Through a fellowship after graduation from WWS, Robin visited drug reform agencies and community organizations in 25 states. The goal of his photo essay is to promote the treatment of substance abuse as a health problem rather than a criminal activity. In 2003, Robin showed his work in the Bernstein Gallery on AIDS in Cuba and Ghana. He is currently a second year medical student at University of Pennsylvania.

WOW! is the membership arm of World Neighbors, an international development organization that creates long-term change in remote communities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Through membership fees, WOW! enhances World Neighbors efforts to empower women and their families so they can transform their own communities through access to education, health care, food production techniques and income generation activities. Representing women in World Neighbors programs, the WOW! Photo Exhibit reminds us that all women are powerful and that their strength, character and wisdom molds the future.

The story of 111 First Street, an old factory building in Jersey City, is the tension between 200 artists and a billionaire landlord. When it became clear that the artists would be forced to leave their homes and studio space, one of these artists, Edward Fausty, felt compelled to photograph the studios and public space in the building, to record the "fragile utopia" that had been his home and community. It is a classic story between speculative absentee landlords/developers and the local citizens impacted by their projects.