November 11, 2010
Two artists-in-residence will be highlighted in Peripheral Vision—New Work by Bremner Benedict and David Politzer, an exhibit opening Saturday, November 20, 2010 through February 6, 2011 at the Museum of Northern Arizona. Despite their different styles and artistic attitudes, photographer Bremner Benedict and videographer David Politzer offer postmodern perspectives that avoid the more often seen romanticized images of this region.
Each artist spent three weeks at the Museum in 2009, exploring the area around Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, and the southern Colorado Plateau to create their unique, and perhaps unexpected, work for this exhibit.
MNA Fine Arts Curator Alan Petersen stated, “Three years ago, MNA initiated an Artists-in-Residence Program. There had been similar programs in the past, though not for many years. This program offers artists the opportunity to pursue their artistic discipline, while developing new insights and understandings of this area through the artistic process.”
Bremner Benedict
Bremner Benedict lives in Concord, Massachusetts. Her photography focuses on the intrusion of modern technology, specifically electrical power lines and towers that dot the vast landscapes of the American West, and on the sculptural beauty found in these structures amidst ancient and wild landscapes. Benedict reveals landscapes divided and vistas interrupted. The towers irrevocably alter the landscape, creating a tension between the human and natural worlds.
She has won Best of Show awards at the Nexus Gallery, New York and Photo Central Gallery in Hayward, California, She is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Finalist and has had solo shows at the Hess Gallery, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts; Texas Women’s University, Denton, Texas; the Print Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and the Silver Eye Photo Gallery online. Benedict’s work was included in the Vital Signs Exhibition at the George Eastman International Museum of Film and Photography in Rochester, New York; is a part of the traveling exhibit and book Earth Now, American Photographers and the Environment, produced by the New Mexico Museum of Art; and was in the Annual Exhibition at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Benedict’s work can be found in the following public collections: the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the George Eastman Museum of Film and Photography; the Fogg Museum of Art at Harvard; the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts; McNeese University, Lake Charles, Louisiana; and the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
More of her work can be viewed at http://bremnerbenedict.com/.
David Politzer
David Politzer creates videographic, photographic, performance, and sculptural works with his eye on contemporary social interactions. He is particularly interested in portrayals of masculinity in film and television, and the expectations they create. His style is informal, employing humor and irony to address topics such as relationships, body image, and self-confidence.
Last summer Politzer moved to Houston, Texas from Youngstown, Ohio. He is teaching at the University of Houston in the Photography and Digital Media Department.
Politzer has exhibited internationally and recently his work has been exhibited in the U.S. at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in the Bronx, New York; Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut; the Soap Factory, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas; and K Space Contemporary, Corpus Christie, Texas. His other artist-in-residencies have been at Yaddo, an artists’ working community in Saratoga Springs, New York; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine; Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program, Roswell, New Mexico; the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont, the largest artists’ and writers’ residency program; and the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California.
More of his work can be viewed at http://davideology.com/.
About the Museum
Now celebrating its 83rd year, the Museum of Northern Arizona inspires love and responsibility for the Colorado Plateau. It’s nine permanent and changing exhibit galleries present Native cultures, tribal lifeways, natural sciences, and fine arts from the region.
It is located at the base of the San Francisco Peaks, three miles north of historic downtown Flagstaff on scenic Highway 180. It is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Admission is $7 adult, $6 senior (65+), $5 student, and $4 child (7–17.