Written by Lindsay Preston Zappas Aug. 04, 2020 ARTS
“Spotlight” at Dominique
An online group exhibition at Dominique Gallery highlights photography as a direct response to our current moment. While the gallery is currently closed due to the pandemic, the exhibition utilizes the online art sales platform, Artsy, to present a rotating array of works by six young photographers. Gallerist Dominique Clayton told me, “I didn't want the pandemic and limited resources to stop my abilities to highlight artists who want and need to express themselves in this moment.”
While history is often told and understood through documentary photographs, our contemporary image culture gives the medium a more urgent primacy. Titled “SPOTLIGHT,” the exhibition highlights artists who use photography as an expression of identity, whether documenting the community around them, utilizing methods of collage, or staging stylized photoshoots.
The press release explains that “in today’s climate, there are so many issues and people that need our immediate attention and action. ... Photography also works well as a device alongside other media to convey a larger narrative about stereotypes and objectification especially in connection to Black and Brown bodies.”
Clayton explained, “Contemporary art in its most basic definition is the art of today produced by artists living right now, so why not intentionally amplify voices of artists, especially young artists of color, who have documented the world through their very own eyes? Dismantling the ’white gaze’ and other historic limitations and prejudices in art, culture, and media is the only way to correct inequity and fully appreciate all that art has to offer.”
On view: July 24–October 15, 2020 | Open map
Atiya Jones, “Mom, As Above,” 2005. Ilford 400, High Gloss Photographic Print, 20" x 13". Image courtesy of Dominique Gallery.
Kelsey Arrington, “Marketplace,” 2020. Limited Edition Archival Giclee Print, 20 x 16 inches. Image courtesy of Dominique Gallery.