FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 1, 2016
Lyman Allyn Art Museum
Press Contact: Rebecca Marsie, Communications Associate
860.443.2545 x112 / [email protected]
LYMAN ALLYN ART MUSEUM OPENS PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT BY JOE STANDART
New London Project 10th Anniversary Portraits
New London – The Lyman Allyn Art Museum is proud to present New London Project 10th Anniversary Portraits. This exhibition celebrates the tenth anniversary of the highly acclaimed Portrait of a City, the New London Project. It will be on view September 10, 2016 through January 22, 2017.
Created by nationally renowned photographer Joe Standart, Portrait of America is a series of site-specific public art installations exploring universal issues. The process for New London Project 10th Anniversary Portraits originally began 10 years ago as Standart worked closely with community organizations to depict through portraiture the full range of New London’s increasingly diverse urban and rural environments.
The first exhibition opened in June of 2006, transforming downtown New London into a vibrant video and photo exhibition, which came to life in the city streets, train and ferry stations, cultural institutions, workplaces and galleries. It consisted of 150 works, some measuring 30 feet tall and the rest being life size. The result was a continuously evolving, living portrait, energized by the community’s connections to and within it.
Designed not merely to adorn the city, but also to celebrate it, Portrait brought together art and community development to enrich the cultural experience of New London. It invigorated the city’s public spaces, inspiring and challenging us to see our neighbor and our community in a different light, perhaps with more understanding and compassion.
New London Project 10th Anniversary Portraits presents 25 pairs of images: original portraits taken in 2006 displayed side by side with portrayals of the same subjects 10 years later. Taken together, the portraits present a snapshot of the city itself, captured at two moments in time. The goal of each portrait is to discover and honor the individual’s innate dignity and to introduce the element of change through time. The images confront their viewer with expressions that are at times contemplative or detached, amused or militant, insecure, searching or simply content.
Through portraits both monumental in scale and intimate in scope, Standart explores universal themes of human life. His subjects are people from every culture and race, whose lives are intertwined with the City: the grocer, the policeman, the artist, the reporter – the common man. Through its uniqueness the project engages and encourages an ever more vibrant community, one that embraces diverse ways of seeing, of being, and in the process teaches us of the power of “We.” While the images reference civic hardship, crumbling infrastructure and crippling urban or rural demise, the portraits reveal the full scope of human experience.
Art can be a catalyst to community engagement, economic development and city wide growth. For over 15 years, Joe Standart has focused his lens to inspire, change, and bring communities together. Standart asked himself, “How can I use my skills as a photographer to inspire, change, and make a difference?” His answer is Portrait of America.
The Exhibition Opening Reception will be on Friday, September 9th from 5:00 – 7:00pm. Lyman Allyn members are free and non-members are $10. Please RSVP to 860.443.2545 ext. 129.
Programming for the exhibition will include a panel discussion, a gallery stroll with the artist; subsidized school field trips; adult group tours; hands-on art classes related to exhibit themes and free children’s art activities.
Exhibitions and programs are funded in part by the Department of Economic and Community Development; the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund; and The LaBoiteaux Family Foundation.
Check the museum website at www.lymanallyn.org and Facebook page for updates and additional programming.
Tours of the exhibition are available for groups. To schedule tours, call the Director of Education at 860-443-2545, ext. 110 or e-mail [email protected].
For more information or images, please contact Rebecca Marsie at 860.443.2545 x112 or at [email protected].
About Joe Standart
A professional photographer for 40 years, Joe Standart is acclaimed for capturing the ever-changing subtleties of light and mood. His award-winning career includes individual and group shows across the country and his work is included in many private collections and museums. His work has been exhibited at The Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, throughout the streets of Hartford, The Williams College Art Center, The Cooley Gallery and others. His commercial work includes Architectural Digest, House & Garden, General Electric, Viking Range Corporation, The Cindy Crawford Collection, and many more. Standart has published four books, An Affair with a House, The Scented Room and Passion for Detail, and he has contributed to many more.
About the Lyman Allyn Art Museum
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum welcomes visitors from New London, southeastern Connecticut and all over the world. Established in 1926 by a gift from Harriet Allyn in memory of her seafaring father, the Museum opened the doors of its beautiful neo-classical building surrounded by 12 acres of green space in 1932. Today it presents a number of changing exhibitions each year and houses a fascinating collection of over 16,000 objects from ancient times to the present; artworks from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, with particularly strong collections of American paintings, decorative arts and Victorian toys and doll houses.
The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, exit 83 off I-95. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm, Sundays 1:00 – 5:00 pm; closed Mondays and major holidays. For more information call 860.443.2545, ext. 129 or visit us on Facebook or the web at: www.lymanallyn.org.