Joel Sternfeld
Timken Lecture Hall, California College of the Arts, San Francisco
American photographer Joel Sternfeld helped pioneer the use of color in art photography in the 1970s and 1980s, first gaining serious recognition with the publication of American Prospects in 1987. The book, which featured pictures taken on a series of road trips across the country, subtly documented underlying socioeconomic issues in America with irony and humor. Subsequent projects have focused on different aspects of American life and culture, including alternative lifestyle communities, environmental degradation, historical sites and strangers. With an eye for the absurd as well as the quietly monumental, Sternfeld captures all of his subjects with dignity.
Throughout his career, the book has been a significant method of presenting work for Sternfeld. American Prospects was the first of a number of highly regarded and influential books, which includes On This Site (1996), Stranger Passing (2001), Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America (2006), iDubai (2010), First Pictures (2011) and others.
Sternfeld’s work has been widely exhibited internationally and is included in the collections of institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; and Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Prix-de-Rome (1990-91) and the Citibank Photography Award (2004). He currently lives in New York City and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program
Pier 24 Photography is pleased to present the Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program in collaboration with California College of the Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Each year, the Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program brings six photographers, writers, and curators to San Francisco to offer free and open lectures, and to work one-on-one with students at California College of the Arts.
Larry Sultan Photography Award
Jonathan Calm
Fall 2019 Residency
Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA
Click HERE for more information on the Larry Sultan Photography Award
Jonathan Calm is a visual artist who works in photography, video, installation, and performance. A central theme of his work is the relationship between photography and urban architecture, and the powerful role of images in the way architectural constructs shape the lives of individuals and communities.
In his most recent work, Calm explores the complex representation of African-American automobility from a historical and contemporary perspective, focusing and drawing on the importance and resonance of the Negro Motorist Green Book. Of this project, he explains, “the image of the infinite highway and the unbridled freedom to roam the land has always been considered a quintessential expression of the modern American spirit, but the black American experience of travel, which involves heightened subjectivity and exposure, has to this day proven a precarious privilege rather than an inalienable right.”
Calm’s art practice is international in scope and has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including Frequency at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2005); Role Play at the Tate Britain (2006); Black Is, Black Ain’t at the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society (2008); Streetwise at the Reina Sophia Museum in Madrid (2008) and the Chelsea Art Museum (2011); deCordova Biennial at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (2013); and Rooted Movements at LMAKprojects in New York City (2014). Calm currently lives in Palo Alto, CA where he is a faculty member in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University.