Dual Exhibition: George Krause/Paul Calhoun & Gia Chkhatarashvili
March 6 – 31, 2007
Frederick Layton Gallery, Tues. – Sat., 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Dual photography exhibition brings international talent
to U.S. and Milwaukee for first time
A reception for Chkhatarashvili and Calhoun will be held on Friday, March 9, 6 – 9 p.m.
A reception for Krause will be held on Tuesday, March 27, following his 7 – 9 p.m. lecture as part of the college’s Ello & Guido Brink Visiting Artist Lecture Series.
Three internationally recognized photographers will show their work in a new exhibition in MIAD’s Frederick Layton Gallery March 6 – 31, 2007. George Krause will exhibit work from a series that uses the unique effects of Sfumato lighting with Texas State football players and nude subjects. Paul Calhoun and Gia Chkhatarashvili will show for the first time in the United States collaborative work that broke new ground when it was originally shown in the Republic of Georgia, where it was supported in part by the U.S. Embassy.
Director of Galleries Mark Lawson said of Krause’s work: "The Sfumato method illuminates the subject from behind, such that the outline of the body, often the most emphasized aspect of a figure, essentially disappears. Also, unlike conventional portraiture, shadows are in the middle of the figure, not on its edge, so that the subject’s features appear to float in a sea of light, disconnected from their usual context. The viewer is lead to focus on aspects of the figure and its relationship to its surrounding that are usually overlooked and underappreciated."
A renowned photographer for 30 years, Krause received the first Prix de Rome and first Fulbright-Hays Fellowship awarded to a photographer, and three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. His photographs are in such collections as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Library of Congress and Paris’ Bibliotheque National.
Milwaukeean Calhoun and Georgian Chkhatarashvili will present work that documents life’s difficult circumstances in the Republic of Georgia through viewpoints developed in two widely differing societies. The majority of the work has been part of the first Georgian-American photo exhibition "A Bridge on the Ocean," which was opened in Tbilisi in May 2005 and supported in part by the U.S. Embassy there. The MIAD exhibition is the first of this work in the U.S.
The pair’s collaborative work began in September 2004 during Calhoun’s retrospective exhibit in Georgia. During his month-long stay, he taught photography to orphans and street children in the capital city of Tbilisi, where he also lectured and met Chkhatarashvili. Chkhatarashvili’s work focuses on the struggles of people in the small mountain village of Svaneti; Calhoun’s on the children and people of Tbilisi with selections from his retrospective.
Chkhatarashvili has exhibited widely throughout Europe and was named in 2005 a Soros International Documentary Fellow. Calhoun, who is an adjunct faculty member at MIAD, has exhibited widely in New York, Chicago, Europe and the Far East, and has received numerous national grants. In Milwaukee, he works with underserved Milwaukee Public School students through the Artists Working in Education (AWE) program.
