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| Nikita Gale, "1961" series, diptychs, 22" x 28" (framed), archival pigment print and collage. Image courtesy Reginald Ingraham Gallery. All rights reserved. |
1961
May 31 – July 5, 2014
6021 West
Washington Boulevard
Culver
City, CA
From
Reginald Ingraham Gallery press release:
Reginald
Ingraham Gallery continues to highlight contemporary African American artists
and their innovative aesthetic with an exhibition of Nikita Gale, who, in this
series, aptly titled 1961, explores
the boundaries of the photographic medium.
A native
Georgian, Gale examines the multiple contexts of time, space and meaning. By juxtaposing
collaged booking photographs of Freedom Riders of the early 60’s, and white
middle class ethos, she is reinterpreting and reclaiming historic conversations
that illuminate the dissonance of racial discourse at a period of time in the
American South.
The images
of Freedom Riders symbolize, literally and figuratively, the fragile mobility
of blacks in the South during the late 50’s and early 60’s. Gale illustrates
this tension by placing their black and white mug shots next to richly colored,
idyllic images of whites enjoying themselves in picturesque landscapes. This paradox,
made more capricious with the words and phrases of noted racists and segregationists,
allows Gale to deepen the multidimensionality of meaning and fabrication. She seeks
to be provocative and playful in her postmodern approach to distance and
complexity, as demonstrated in images that are stark and remote, yet alluring.
Gale
refers to her work as an archaeological and artistic excavation. She uncovers,
studies and builds anew, modeling recontextualized concepts with a modern
aesthetic. By artfully arranging loaded re-photographed images of people in the
struggle and those resisting change to the social climate of Southern life,
Gale deconstructs notions of power, and addresses the discord of the moment. The
new conversation, born from the creative merging of imagery and significance,
encourages very different associations of the social and political framework
that continues to structure our present.
Nikita
Gale composed the 1961 series during
her residency at The Center for Photography at Woodstock, New York. She holds a
BA in anthropology from Yale University. She currently lives in Atlanta. Nikita
Gale is represented by Reginald Ingraham Gallery.
YouTube: The Influencers Present: Nikita Gale
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