Joel-Peter Witkin
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Joel-Peter Witkin (born September 13, 1939, in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American photographer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Witkin was born to a Jewish father and Roman Catholic mother. He has a twin brother, Jerome Witkin, who also plays a significant role in the art world for his realistic paintings. He also has a son named Kersen Witkin who is a talented painter in his own right. Witkin's parents divorced when Witkin was young because they were unable to transcend their religious differences. He attended grammar school at Saint Cecelia's in Brooklyn and went on to Grover Cleveland High School. He worked as a war photographer between 1961 and 1964 during the Vietnam war. In 1967, he decided to work as a freelance photographer and became City Walls Inc. official photographer. Later, he attended Cooper Union in New York where he studied sculpture and became Bachelor of Arts in 1974. After the Columbia University granted him a scholarship, he ended his studies at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where he became Master of Fine Arts.
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[edit] Influences and Themes
Witkin claims that his vision and sensibility were initiated by an episode he witnessed when he was just a small child, a car accident that occurred in front of his house in which a little girl was decapitated.
It happened on a Sunday when my mother was escorting my twin brother and me down the steps of the tenement where we lived. We were going to church. While walking down the hallway to the entrance of the building, we heard an incredible crash mixed with screaming and cries for help. The accident involved three cars, all with families in them. Somehow, in the confusion, I was no longer holding my mother's hand. At the place where I stood at the curb, I could see something rolling from one of the overturned cars. It stopped at the curb where I stood. It was the head of a little girl. I bent down to touch the face, to speak to it -- but before I could touch it someone carried me away."[1]
He also claims that the difficulties in his family were an influence for his work too. His favourite artist is Giotto, but the most obvious artistic influences on his work are Surrealism (particularly Max Ernst) and Baroque art. His photographic techniques draw on early Daguerreotypes and on the work of E. J. Bellocq.
His work often deals with such themes as death, corpses (or pieces of them), and various outsiders such as dwarfs, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, and physically deformed people. Some of his works, namely those with corpses in them, have had to been created in Mexico in order to get around restrictive US laws. His complex tableaux often recall religious episodes or famous classical paintings. Because of the transgressive nature of the contents of his pictures, his works have been labeled exploitative and have sometimes shocked public opinion. His art was often marginalized because of this challenging aspect.
He employs a highly intuitive approach to the physical process of making the photograph, including scratching the negative, bleaching or toning the print, and an actual hands-in-the-chemicals printing technique. This experimentation began after seeing a 19th-century ambrotype of a woman and her ex-lover who had been scratched from the frame.
[edit] Chronology
- 1939: WITKIN, JOEL-PETER, photographer and poet, born in Brooklyn September 13, 1939- Max and Mar (Pellegrino) W.; one child, Lersen Ahanu; m. Barbara Anne Gilbert, 2005.
- 1959: Group show at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC
- 1973- 1974: Student poetry fellow at Columbia University
- 1974: Received his B.F.A. at Cooper Union
- 1980: Exhibited in Projects Studio One, NYC
- 1981: Group show at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
- 1982: Exhibited in Galerie Texbraun, Paris. Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris
- 1983: Exhibited in Kansas City Art Institute. Exhibited in Stedelijk Mus, Amsterdam. Exhibited in Fraenkel Gallery. Exhibited in Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery, NYC
- 1984: Exhibited in Fraenkel Gallery. Exhibited in Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery, NYC
- 1985: Exhibited in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Group show at the Whitney Biennial
- 1986: Received his M.F.A. at U.N. Mex. Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Brooklyn Museum. Group show at Palis de Tokyo, Paris
- 1987: Exhibited in Fraenkel Gallery. Exhibited in Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery, NYC. Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Fahey/Klein Gallery, L.A.
- 1988: Exhibited in Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid.
- 1989: Exhibited in Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery, NYC. Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Exhibited in Fahey/Klein Gallery, L.A.
- 1990: Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris
- 1991: Exhibited in Fraenkel Gallery. Exhibited in Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery, NYC. Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Fahey/Klein Gallery, L.A. Exhibited in Museum Of Modern Art Haifa, Israel
- 1993: Exhibited in Fraenkel Gallery. Exhibited in Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery, NYC. Exhibited in Photo Picture Space Gallery Osaka, Japan
- 1994: Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Taipei Photo Gallery, Taiwan
- 1995: Exhibited in Fraenkel Gallery. Exhibited in Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery, NYC. Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Photo Picture Space Gallery Osaka, Japan. Exhibited in Guggenheim Museum, NYC. Exhibited in Interkamera, Prague. Exhibited in II Castello de Rivoli Museum., Turin
- 1996: Artist in residence Zerybthia Rome Italy summer of this year. Lecturer Am. Acad. Rome. Exhibited in Encontros de Fotografia, Coimbra, Portugal. Exhibited in Rencontres de la Photograpie, Arles, France. Exhibited in Taipei Photo Gallery, Taiwan. Group show at La Photographie Contemporaine en France
- 1997: Exhibited in Fraenkel Gallery. Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery, NYC Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Fahey/Klein Gallery, L.A. Group show at Foto Masson, Goteberg, Sweden. Group show at Hanlin Museum, South Korea. Group show at Hayward Gallery, London
- 1998: Exhibited in Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe. Exhibited in Wildenstein Gallery, Tokyo. Exhibited in Pace Wildenstein, L.A.Exhibited in Taipei Photo Gallery, Taiwan. Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Artist in residence Berlin fall of 1998 and Paris winter 1998. Exhibited in Encontros de Fotografia, Coimbra, Portugal. Exhibited in Camera Work, Berlin, El Escorial, Spain. Exhibited in Fahey/Klein Gallery, L.A. Group show at Bogardenkapel, Bruges. Group show at Srasborg Mus. D’Art Moderne et Contemporaine
- 1999: Exhibited in Sternburg Museum, Prague. Exhibited in Mesiac Fotographie, Slovakia. Group show the Ansel Adams Ctr., San Francisco Group show at Camera Work, San Francisco. Group show at The Louvre, Paris
- 2000: Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Hotel de Sully, Paris Exhibited in Caherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago. Exhibited in Ctr. Contemporary Art, Honolulu. Group show at Musee Bourdelle, Paris. Group show at John Gibson Gallery, NYC. Group show at The High Mus. Art, Ga.,
- 2001: Lecture at Yale University. Exhibited in Photo Picture Space Gallery Osaka, Japan. Exhibited in Etherton Gallery, Tucson. Group show at The Fotografie Forum, Frankfort
- 2002: Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Stadt Mus., Jena. Exhibited in Picture Photo Space, Osaka. Exhibited in Infinito Gallery, Turin. Group show at National Gallery of Canada. Group show at Hotel de Sully, Paris. Group show at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Group show at The Whitney Museum, NYC
- 2003: Exhibited in Galeria Juaa de Aizpura, Madrid. Exhibited in Photoes Pana, Madrid. Exhibited in Le Garage Galerie, Toulouse. Group show at H. Lunn Collection, Lille. Group show at Photology, Milan. Group show at Akira Ikeda Gallery, Berlin
- 2004: Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Exhibited in ARCO, Madrid. Group show at National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Group show at Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC
- 2005: Exhibited in Fahey/Klein Gallery, L.A. Exhibited in Etherton Gallery, Tucson. Exhibited in Linda Durham Gallery, Santa Fe. Exhibited Gary Tatinstian Gallery, Moscow. Exhibited in Moscow House Photography. Group show at Guggenheim, Bilbao. Group show at D’Art Del’Yonne. Group show at Wessel and O’Connor Fine Art, NYC. Group show at Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago
- 2006: Lecturer at Ecole Superier, Paris. Lecturer at Spanish Embassy, Moscow. Solo show Witkin Vintage, Hasted Hunt, NYC Solo show Café Francoise, Brussels, Paris Photo. Group show at Cite Internationale: “The Book,” M.E.P. Paris. Group show at Houston Center for Photography, Silver Retrospective
- 2007: Exhibited in Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Lecturer at Medici Palace, Seravezza. Exhibited in Paris Photo. Group Show at National Gallery of Canada: The Invisible Landscape
[edit] Notes
- ^ Storck, Jeanne (2001). "Band of Outsiders: Williamsburg's Renegade Artists". Billburg.com. http://www.billburg.com/localcolor/content.cfm?id=134. Retrieved on 2007-08-19.
2008: Exhibited in The Cathrine Edelman Gallery, Chicago, Il: Poetic Realism
