Exhibition Details
About Us: The American Imaginary spotlights three notions of “American.” The exhibition is curated by the Terra Foundation Fellows (Christina Chan, Annette Parkins, and Carlos David Trujillo), who are members of QM’s local community, appointed through a general open call. The three discrete collections of images on view in the exhibition emerged from each Fellow’s lived experience, scholarly research, and collaboration.
Through varied subject matter and across time, the images speak to family lore and nostalgia, contradiction, visibility, migration, fame, intimacy, conflict, and roots.
Through varied subject matter and across time, the images speak to family lore and nostalgia, contradiction, visibility, migration, fame, intimacy, conflict, and roots.
Additional Details
The exhibition considers one’s claim to the term “American,” as well as the ways in which a recognition of “American-ness” appears in visual art: what is American about American Art?
Photographers born within and outside the borders of the United States are included in this presentation, nodding to the flow of people and culture that shapes America. The photographs date from the mid-nineteenth century to 1979, and are predominantly albumen and vintage silver gelatin prints.
Even today, these photographs negotiate between the perception of the photographer and the shifting context of an image over time. This exhibition’s compilation of perspectives, even as they remain incomplete, offers poetic and intimate interpretations in response to the guiding question.
Photographers born within and outside the borders of the United States are included in this presentation, nodding to the flow of people and culture that shapes America. The photographs date from the mid-nineteenth century to 1979, and are predominantly albumen and vintage silver gelatin prints.
Even today, these photographs negotiate between the perception of the photographer and the shifting context of an image over time. This exhibition’s compilation of perspectives, even as they remain incomplete, offers poetic and intimate interpretations in response to the guiding question.
Location
Queens Museum
New York City Building
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Queens, NY 11368
New York City Building
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Queens, NY 11368
Image: [Massive deck girder leaving U.S. Steel’s Gary, Indiana plant], c. 1940s. Vintage silver gelatin print / courtesy of Queens Museum