Simon Baker
Timken Lecture Hall, California College of the Arts, San Francisco
Simon Baker is the Tate Modern’s first Curator of Photography and International Art. In his position, he is responsible for the acquisition of new works and advancing the photography exhibition program at both the Tate and Tate Modern. Baker studied art history at the University College London and received his PhD in 2002. He was a Henry Moore Fellow at UCL and a 2003-2004 Gould Fellow recipient at Princeton University in history of photography. Prior to joining the Tate, he was Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Nottingham, where he taught history of photography, surrealism and contemporary art. He is also the chair of the Oxford Art Journal’s editorial group.
Baker has been praised for significantly expanding the Tate’s relationship to photography and photographers. In evaluating potential photographic acquisitions for the museum, he considers how the works align with the painting, sculpture and other media already in the collection. He often finds new work and undiscovered artists through their self-published books. A few of these self-published books originally piqued his interest in Japanese photography, primarily the work of Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki.
Baker’s essays on surrealism, photography, and contemporary art have been widely published, and he has curated the following exhibitions: Undercover Surrealism: Georges Bataille and Documents (Hayward, London, 2006); Close-up: Proximity and Defamiliarisation in Art, Film and Photography (Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, 2008); Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera (with Sandra Phillips, Tate Modern, 2010); Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I- XVIII (Tate Modern, 2011); and William Klein + Daido Moriyama (Tate Modern, 2012).
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.