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| Photographs by David Akiba |
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| Tickets/Registration: 212.415.5500 |
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| Media Contact: Michael Grant, 212.415.5435, email |
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| Through the Lens: A Separate Journey |
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| PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID AKIBA |
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| 92nd Street Y Weill Art Gallery |
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Public viewing hours: Sept 10, 15, 17, 22, 24, 29, Oct 1, 6, 8, 15, 22; 12-4pm.
Information: 212-415-5749.
Presented by the 92nd Street Y School of the Arts |
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| New York, NY, September, 6, 2005—The 92nd Street Y presents Through the Lens: A Separate Journey, a selection of black-and-white photographs taken by David Akiba over a 20-year period. The exhibition documents the photographer's experience as witness to his son Jonah's conversion to a Jewish orthodox life — a religious transformation that profoundly altered the relationships between a father and his two sons, and between two siblings. |
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The photographs on view in Through the Lens were culled from over 2500 images and chronicle Jonah's upbringing in a secular environment and subsequent move to a Hasidic community in Israel. The exhibition offers several perspectives on Jonah's departure from secular society. The photographs record such milestones as Akiba's trip to Israel to visit Jonah and Jonah's wedding as well as Jonah's childhood and his relationship with his brother Dan.
In their childhood, Dan and Jonah were very close and were sometimes mistaken for best friends rather than brothers. Akiba's photographs document this attachment through the boys' high school years. When Jonah dropped out of college in order to travel and "find himself," according to Akiba, "everything changed." Jonah studied the Torah in Israel and became increasingly committed to fundamentalist beliefs, which came as a complete shock to the Akiba family.
The emotional challenges associated with Jonah's transformation are evident throughout Akiba's photographic record. The apparent "normality" of Jonah's childhood is contrasted with the sense of alienation captured in the later photographs as Jonah becomes an outsider in his own family. Among other events that become part of the photographic record in Through the Lens, Jonah has a son, which raises additional questions about Jewish values, religious practice and family dynamics.
Dan Akiba's award-winning film, My Brother's Wedding, explores the same subject matter as Through the Lens from the perspective of a sibling. Through their work in photography and film, respectively, Akiba and his son Dan have undertaken artistic journeys separate from but parallel to Jonah's. In their search for understanding, father and son both explore the past through the lens of a camera.
David Akiba has been a photographer for more than 30 years. Best known for his landscape photography, he has been honored by the American Society of Landscape Architects. Akiba's work has been exhibited at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the DeCordova Museum; the Rose Art Museum; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Newport Art Museum; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Brooklyn Museum; the DeCordova Museum; the Addison Gallery of Art; the Fogg Art Museum; and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, among others. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Akiba has taught at RISD, the University of Massachusetts (Boston), the Art Institute of Boston, Clark University, the New England School of Photography, Emerson College, and Boston College.
Through the Lens: A Separate Journey remains on view at the 92nd Street Y (1395 Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street) through October 28, 2005. Public viewing hours are September 10, 15, 17, 22, 24, 29, and October 1, 6, 8, 15, 22, from 12 to 4pm. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call 212-415-5749.
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| ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y |
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The 92nd Street Y School of the Arts gives children and adults a place to indulge their artistic passions. The School of Music (estab. 1917) and the Art Center (estab. 1930) offer training for beginners, amateurs and professional artists in virtually every style and medium. The programs also offer unique opportunities including visiting-artist workshops, master classes, an interview series with leading visual artists, and a state-of-the-art electronic music laboratory. What is now the Harkness Dance Center (estab. 1935) played a central role in the development of the American modern dance movement in the 1930s; for decades, the Y was a locus of activity by the leading practitioners of that form. Today, the Dance Center trains lay and professional dancers as well as choreographers and dance teachers, and offers both amateur and working dancers a wealth of performance opportunities. A fourth School of the Arts program, Educational Outreach, brings the arts into the lives of 6,000 economically disadvantaged public elementary school children.
Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural and community center serving people of all races, faiths and backgrounds. The 92nd Street Y's mission is to enrich the lives of the over 300,000 people who visit each year — both in person and through Live from NY's 92nd Street Y!, the Y's satellite broadcast program. The organization's East Side headquarters and West Side outpost, Makor, offer comprehensive performing arts, film and spoken word events; courses in the humanities, arts and Jewish education; activities and workshops for children, teenagers and parents; and health and fitness programs for people of every age. Committed to making its programs available to everyone, the 92nd Street Y awards over $1 million in scholarships annually and reaches out to 6,000 public school children each year through subsidized arts education programs. For more information, visit www.92Y.org/PRESS.
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© 2008 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association
All Rights Reserved. |
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