Have you ever looked at a photo or a work of art and wondered if there was a story behind it? Why the photographer chose that angle or the painter those colors? Those missing puzzle pieces to select works will be uncovered during FotoFocus’ Biennial this fall.
FotoFocus, a Cincinnati arts nonprofit that champions photography and lens-based art, will host its Biennial — a month-long lens-based art show that extends throughout Greater Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus and Northern Kentucky — this October, with an opening weekend program kicking it off Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 26-28. The Biennial is a collaborative effort between FotoFocus and the region’s museums, galleries, universities and public spaces that unites artists, curators and educators from around the world. With 107 projects across 84 venues, the seventh edition of the Biennial will be the biggest and most ambitious yet, says organizers.
In April of last year, the nonprofit announced its theme for its upcoming Biennial will be backstories. The nonprofit says the theme aims to show the full context and broader history of photographs that live outside the frame — experiences that may have happened out of view or gone unnoticed.
“Backstories is inspired by hidden histories and reclaimed narratives,” FotoFocus artistic director and curator Kevin Moore said in a press release. “As a theme, it's meant to get us to think of the ways stories — personal, historical, political — have contexts that are necessary to look into. Photographs and backstories work on parallel planes.”
On Wednesday, FotoFocus announced the 15 featured projects that would expound on those untold histories, including Discovering Ansel Adams at the Cincinnati Art Museum, an unprecedented exhibition of Ansel Adams’ earliest works, and Subjective Evidence at the Contemporary Arts Center, the first American survey of work by Barbara Probst.
Other featured projects include:
- Traces of Ecstasy at the Wexner Center for the Arts, the first comprehensive museum presentation by Nigerian-British photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode
- Exhibits Transcendence and August Moon by Columbus native Ming Smith at the Columbus Museum of Art, as well as a self-titled exhibit at Wexner Center for the Arts
- Chip Thomas and the Painted Desert Project, a solo exhibit with a newly commissioned mural by Chip Thomas at the Contemporary Arts Center
- Southern Democratic, a meditation by 15 contemporary artists on William Eggleston’s Election Eve photographs at The Carnegie
- Memory Fields, a group exhibit that looks at the relationships between culture, place and memory at the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery.
There will also be a new initiative for this Biennial. Call for Entry Selections will celebrate emerging artists in the region by featuring six projects that coincide with the theme of backstories and were produced by local, independent creatives. These include:
- Digressions and Another First Impression, which showcase life in the oft-forgotten Midwest, at the Art Academy of Cincinnati
- Humphrey Gets His Flowers, a cathartic examination of personal history at the Art Academy of Cincinnati
- More Than Meets the Eye, an intimate look at the lives of refugee families, which can be viewed on the Purple People Bridge
- Artist Run, which will take viewers on a photographic tour of Cincinnati’s historical artist-run spaces at various locations
- Rachael Banks: Trail of the Dead, a visual anthology of Central Kentucky at the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery
“FotoFocus is delighted to once again partner with local, regional and global artists and institutions to bring exceptional programming to Cincinnati and beyond,” FotoFocus’ executive director, Katherine Ryckman Siegwarth, said in the release. “We are eager to welcome attendees from all over the world to our biggest biennial yet.”
FotoFocus’ Biennial is happening at over 80 locations throughout the region during the month of October. For more information on programming, visit fotofocus.org.
