Harn Museum presents gallery talk on diverse photography exhibition

October 11, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – What do Popeye and Miss Piggy have in common? Visitors to the Harn Museum of Art will find out at 3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 15, when Harn Curator of Photography Tom Southall guides visitors through the photographic works in the exhibition “Contemporary Complexities: Photography Gifts from Martin Z. Margulies.”

On display through Feb. 25, 2007, the exhibition features Martin Z. Margulies’ recent gifts of 28 large-scale photographs by 13 diverse contemporary artists. Margulies is most commonly known by Harn patrons for gifting the hydraulic “Hammering Man” sculpture that remains a focal point of the Harn’s outdoor Sculpture Garden.

“Contemporary Complexities” is the inaugural photography exhibition for the Harn Museum of Art’s new home for photography, the S.F.I. Gallery, where six-month changing installations will feature the Harn’s large photography collection. Featured artists in “Contemporary Complexities” range from renowned photographers like Richard Misrach and Catherine Wagner, who have long-built reputations in the medium, to artists such as Eija-Liisa Ahtila and Liza May Post, who are especially known for their work in film and video, and Paul McCarthy and Xavier Veilhan, whose still photographs primarily serve as complements, or documentary records, of instillations and performances pieces.

These diverse photographs and their creators unite in the challenging explorations of modern life, the roles we create and the present or constructed world. Their broad-ranging and contrasting ideas, approaches and sensibilities are a reflection of the complexities of contemporary culture, and especially the contemporary art scene.

Before joining the Harn in 2004, Southall served as curator of photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, where he was a tenured professor. Southall also has taught at the College of Santa Fe and the University of New Mexico.

Admission to the Harn Museum of Art is free. For more information call 352-392-9826 or visit www.harn.ufl.edu.