WALID RAAD AND JANET KAPLAN

ALSO, go see the art exhibition: Mapping Sitting. on portraiture and photography Grey Art Gallery, NYU, 100 Washington Square East January 11 - April 2, 2005 Go to website

NYC:
WALID RAAD AND JANET KAPLAN: ON ART, HISTORY AND CRITICAL INTERVENTIONS

Monday, March 28, 6:30 p.m.
Free admission
@ Kevorkian Building, New York University, 50 Washington Square South at Sullivan St.

A conversation between Walid Raad, artist and Vera List Center Fellow, and Janet Kaplan, Professor of Art, Moore College of Art and Design, and author of an essay on Walid Raad/The Atlas Group recently published in "Art in America."

Conceived by contemporary artists Walid Raad and Akram Zaatari working with the archives of the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation (AIF), Mapping Sitting explores how photographic portraits operated in the Arab world over the past century. Raad and Zaatari's projected and photographic installations on view in the exhibition highlight four distinct practices: 1) identity photos; 2) the Middle Eastern tradition of photo surprise; 3) itinerant photography; and 4) institutional group portrait photography. Collectively, the images convey the pluralistic and multifaceted communities captured by indigenous photographers-images far different from photos of the region circulating widely in the popular press today. In Mapping Sitting, Raad and Zaatari reveal how Arab portrait photography not only pictured individuals and groups, but also functioned as commodity, luxury item, and adornment. Concentrating on commercial images, the exhibition not only raises questions about portrait photography in the Middle East, but also about portraiture, photography, and visual culture in general.

The Talk is Co-sponsored by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School; The Kevorkian Center and the Center for Media, Culture and History at NYU, and Grey Art Gallery. Information: (212) 998-6780.