International Juried Photography Exhibition

Guest Curator Sarah Weiss
IN-BETWEEN MOMENTS

Opening Reception Saturday Sept 18th 6-8pm
Exhibition Dates: Sept 18th - Oct 2nd, 2021

Exhibition Documentation Link

Guest Curator| Sarah Weiss

French novelist Georges Perec declared that we should found “an anthropology of the ordinary” as revolt against cultural and mass media exploitation of the exotic - the relentless parade of trauma elevated above the routine of everyday events. Perec’s revolt against the frenzy of trauma (the shameful, the voyeuristic and the spectacular) was to excessively document the ordinary in daily life, meticulously accounting for everything and anything in one’s immediate surroundings in an active attempt to uncover the unimportant and the insignificant.

Praxis Gallery presents photographic art that explores the in-between moments of life and endeavours to notice the unnoticeable, the mundane, the banal and anti-climactic. "In giving value to the ordinary we, in turn, begin to value the space of our own identity and everyday ‘normal’ experience that lies outside of commodified and predefined trajectories of trauma exploitation. 

 International Juried Photography Exhibition

The Shape of Things

Opening Reception Sept 18th 6-8pm
Exhibition Dates: Sept 18th - Oct 2nd, 2021

Exhibition Documentation Link

Juror: Praxis Directors 

The rhythm of surfaces, lines, and values is for me the essence of photography; composition should be a constant of preoccupation... an organic coordination of visual elements. – Henri Cartier-Bresson

The term composition means ‘putting together’ or the act of combining parts or elements to form a whole - often adhering to compositional principles that make a work of photographic art more appealing or intriguing to viewers. These principles include the development of rhythm, movement, contrast, balance, unity, proximity and continuity to create expressive and compelling compositions – while emphasizing different visual concepts.

Praxis Gallery presents works of art that explore composition as a fundamental aspect of the photographic aesthetic – be it pure visual formalism or in support of thematic objectives.

 International Juried Photography Exhibition

Guest Curator Aline Smithson
THE ARTIST INTERVENES

Opening Reception: Saturday, Aug 21st 6-8pm
Exhibition Dates: Aug 21- Sept 4th 2021

Exhibition Documentation Link

Guest Curator | Aline Smithson

Photographic artists are reconsidering the potential of a photograph with a shift to making rather than taking photographs.  By using vintage and contemporary photographs as a starting point, artists create physically layered works of art that result in an object, often in reaction to the flood of ubiquitous imagery that digital and cell phone photography has afforded. 

Praxis Gallery presents photographic art or lens-based artwork that utilizes physical interventions and investigations of photographic surfaces that can include sewing, cutting, drawing, painting, tearing, bending, and weaving, all ways of interrogating the material qualities of a physical photograph to create new realities. 

 International Juried Photography Exhibition

THE STREETS

Opening Reception Saturday 6-9pm Aug 21st 2021
Exhibition Dates: Aug 21st - Sept 4th, 2021

Exhibition Documentation Link

 International Juried Small Group Exhibit

ANTHOLOGIES 2

Six Artists • Six Short Stories

Opening Reception: Saturday, July 17th 6-8pm
Exhibit Dates: July 17th - 31st, 2021

Exhibition Documentation Link

Jury Panel: Praxis Directors

Praxis Gallery is inaugurating a biennial, small group exhibition featuring narrative based collections of photographic art limited to six artists with four images each. The title of the show, Anthologies, is derived from the Greek meaning “to gather, or collect”. In this precise sense Praxis Gallery seeks to explore the manner in which photographic artists gather and organize images into collections - thereby creating meaning. However, this is not an exercise in sequencing images or linear chronologies; it is more an interpretive exploration of the interdependence of each image vis a vis the collective meaning of the group of images - indulging the viewer to extract their own subjectivities, searching for meaning out of collected images that may seem meandering, anfractuous and excursionary – as much as they may also seem explicit and absolute in substance.

Exhibition Documentation Link

 International Juried Photography Exhibition

Guest Curator Elizabeth Flinsch

FEMALIA

Opening Night Reception June 19th 6-8pm

Exhibition Dates: June 19th – July 3rd 2021

Exhibition Documentation Link

Guest Curator | Elizabeth Flinsch

We are programmed to understand gender and femininity within narrow and restrictive definitions. Photographs, both historical and contemporary, often reinforce these definitions and boundaries that no longer serve us. 

Photography has the power to transcend all manner of boundaries. It can blur miniscule lines between otherwise dichotomous realms of physical and philosophical space. If we are to reflect on photography’s capacity to challenge concepts of gender and femininity, we enter into an extraordinary opportunity to re-envision and expand our understanding of all who identify as women. We can confront our programmed understandings and reinterpret, both what is in front of the camera and what is behind it. 

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Praxis Gallery presents photographic art or lens-based artwork that challenges, criticizes, redefines, and disrupts our concepts of female identity. 

 International Juried Photography Exhibition

MONO - KROMATIK

OPENING RECEPTION JUNE 19TH 6PM-8PM
Exhibit Dates: June 19th - July 3rd, 2021

Exhibition Documentation Link

Juror | Sandrine Hermand-Grisel

Half a century after the advent of color film, black and white & monochromatic photography continues to capture our collective imagination.  Utilizing  tone,  contrast,  texture   and   shape, monochromatic photography strips its subject to only the most essential visual elements; revealing  a  sense of  soul,  substance  and meaning – separate from the shifting sentiments, symbolism and cultural associations of color imagery.

Praxis Gallery presents photographic works that demonstrate the fundamental qualities that make black and white & monochromatic  photography an enduring, contemporary  art form. 

 International Juried Photography Exhibition

THE BEAUTY IN MADNESS

Open by Appointment
Exhibit Dates: May 15th - 29th 2021

Exhibition Documentation Link

Juror | Sarah Weiss

Madness (mental illness) is something that frightens and fascinates us all. It is a word with which we are universally familiar yet haunts the human imagination. Through centuries, in poetry, prose, drama, and the visual arts, “madness" has been on display for all to see. With devastating effect, mental illness can disturb our commonsense assumptions; create unbearable disruptions in the routine of daily living; and turn our experience and our expectations upside down. And yet, it is this upside-down world view that opens a universe of unique and inventive perspectives oblivious to those free from disruptions of the mind. 

Praxis Gallery presents work that explores ideas linked to mental health, be it conflict or humor, fiction or fact, or any other literal or ephemeral lens-based investigation. We welcome photographic art that questions conventional assumptions about mental health or celebrates the unique perspective only visible to those who can see the "beauty in madness”.

 International Juried Photography Exhibition

Letters, Numbers & Symbols

Open by Appointment

Exhibition Dates: May 15th - May 29th, 2021

Exhibition Documentation Link

Juror | Dallas Crow

What’s written, scrawled, printed, posted, erased, illegible, letters, words, glyphs, equations, signatures, graffiti, advertising, envelopes, love letters, cursive, ampersands, abbreviations, charts, graphs, lines in the sand, hieroglyphs, runes, legends, typos, billboards, mistakes, regrets, palimpsests, fragments, fractions, chicken scratch, alphabets, phrases, nouns, verbs, neon, slogans, documents.

Praxis presents photographic art that includes letters, numbers, words, and/or symbols as a fundamental aspect of the composition. 

Praxis Gallery | Photo Arts Center Presents

This Could Have Been Avoided

A Solo Exhibition by Aaron Nesheim

Postponed Artist Reception: May 15th,2021

Exhibition Dates: April 17th - May 15th, 2021

RSVP HERE

Aaron Nesheim | This Could Have Been Avoided

On the evening of May 25th, 2020 our community was reminded that the status quo remained the same. The world watched as a Minneapolis Police Officer knelt on a black mans neck until he died. After years of calling for reform in the way police interact with the community and the often violent consequences, many in our city had seen enough. This project is from my ongoing documentation of communities efforts to improve the lives of people of color, and other marginalized groups. My aim is to shed light on those working toward reforms. To amplify the voices of those whose efforts have gone unnoticed.

 International Juried Photography Exhibition

The Found Object

Open by Appointment

Exhibition Dates: April 17-May 1st, 2021

Exhibition Documentation Link

Juror | Elizabeth Flinsch

A "found object" is a material artifact discovered by chance and assigned esthetic value in an artist’s hand.  Found art may include a wide array of objects and items either discarded, forgotten, dropped, or misplaced – such as shoes, a fork, shopping carts, signs, doll heads, abandoned cars, clocks, mementos,  or any object that can be reimagined through the lens of a camera… so long as the artist believes that the discovered object possesses a certain aesthetic or talismanic quality - stemming from its appearance, social or personal history.

Praxis presents photographic art that studies of the “found object” as pure visual form, detached from its history or utility. Conversely, the representation of the object may be a catalyst for exploring broader issues such as subjectivity and socialization, memory and loss, or love and death. 

 International Juried Photography Exhibition

THE PORTRAIT

Open By Appointment

Exhibition Dates: March 20th - April 3rd, 2021

Link to Documentation of Exhibition

Juror | Robi Chakraborty

In her book, Portraits and Persons, writer Cynthia Freeland describes three essential elements that constitute a portrait: “(1) a recognizable physical body (2) an inner life, i.e., some sort of psychological or mental states and (3) self-presentation, or the "posing.”
 

Praxis Gallery presents photographic works that celebrates the aesthetic and conceptual considerations involved in the creation of the portrait: revealing personal narratives or new anthologies through the artistic representation of the subject.