MARGARET EVANGELINE
NEIL ALEXANDER
Growing Up in a Gun Culture, My Son, 1996-2014
sublimated prints on aluminum
2 panels; 43 x 56 inches each
I’ve been making portraits of my son Calder since the very moment he came into this world. Lifted from his mother’s womb and placed on the scale, his pediatric nurse took a measuring tape to him. Click went the shutter. The two images in this exhibition, taken eighteen years apart, are the only formal images I’ve ever made of him naked and the only two of him holding a gun.
Though Louisiana is proudly known as the Sportsman’s Paradise, I am not a hunter. Despite raising a son and daughter in New Orleans, which to some is known as much for its violence as its vibrant culture, my wife Nancy and I never felt the need to own a firearm for protection, although we have close friends who do. A break-in robbery, two stolen cars, and friends who had similar experiences, never compelled me to change my mind and purchase a gun. Our kids were raised in a home where their dad shot photographs of the city and its people.
In 1996, as a response to numerous, senseless and violent murders by young men in New Orleans, Brian Borrello put out a call for artists to participate in an exhibit he conceived called “Guns in the Hands of Artists.” My challenge was to create an image that was both disturbing and provocative, an image that challenged our culture’s values. I decided to make a portrait of Calder, naked, innocent, and holding a gun.
Has anything changed? In the eighteen years since I made that portrait I’ve attended three funerals for victims of gun violence in New Orleans. Two deaths were acquaintances of our family, young black men who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The third was a friend, a talented artist and craftsman, who was shot in the back of the head after he dismissed a 14 year-‐old boy who demanded that he “Give it up” in broad daylight only blocks from the 2004 Jazz & Heritage Festival in New Orleans.
Over the last two decades our nation has experienced unfathomable acts of gun violence perpetrated by young men in schools, movie theaters, homes, Shopping malls... the list goes on. Just one of these events should have been enough to generate a sea change of public opinion that would send a clear message to our legislators to write new sensible gun laws. Instead, the opposite seems to be true; guns are big business in our democracy.
Our public discourse today is about protecting students by arming teachers. “Open Carry” laws mean you can go into a bar, restaurant, super market, or house of worship ‘armed and protected.’
We live in a world saturated by guns and violence. Graphic content, unspeakable 18 years ago, is everywhere through a seamless delivery of news, video games and media. As a photographer, artist, and father I never imagined I would be creating this diptych. Now, my son and I present here, in this forum, a public declaration. Enough is enough!
MIAMI, Fl.— Miami Project and Jonathan Ferrara Gallery announce a special, invitation only presentation of the widely acclaimed traveling exhibition Guns In The Hands Of Artists at Miami Project’s fourth edition at The Deauville Resort Hotel (6701 Collins Ave.) during Miami Art Week from December 1-6, 2015. This iteration of the exhibition features thirty nationally known artists who have used over 180 decommissioned guns from the streets of New Orleans to create original works of art dealing with the issue of guns in our society. Artists include Mel Chin, Skylar Fein, Peter Sarkisian, Rico Gatson, Bradley McCallum, and Deborah Luster, who lost her mother to gun violence. The project has been featured in The Associated Press, Vice, Al Jazeera America, Sculpture Magazine, Art Pulse, The Atlantic, and most recently MSNBC.
In 1996 gallery owner Jonathan Ferrara and artist Brian Borrello organized the first Guns in the Hands of Artists exhibition in New Orleans—transforming guns removed from the city’s streets into original works of art. The persistence of violent gun crime in New Orleans and across America led Ferrara to reprise the project at his eponymous gallery in New Orleans in October of 2014 to coincide with the Prospect.3 biennial. In partnership with The Aspen Institute and The City of New Orleans, the exhibition has since been presented at the 2015 Aspen Ideas Festival and the Aspen Action Forum and at the Des Lee Gallery at Washington University in St. Louis. After this special presentation at Miami Project, the exhibition will travel to Chicago to be presented by Project &, and in 2017 it will be exhibited at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Additional dates and cities throughout the United States are in development.
“As an artist, activist and social entrepreneur, I asked myself, ‘What can I do to address this issue that pervades our society?’” said Jonathan Ferrara. “Putting together this exhibition is my way of doing something. It’s my goal to use art and the creative process to facilitate new, frank dialogue about gun violence. The exhibition fosters a new discourse by bringing the discussion into the realm of art; without the often partisan and polarized politics that surround the issue.”
Access to this special presentation of “Guns In The Hands Of Artists” at Miami Project is by invitation only. To request additional information please contact Andrew Freeman at andrew@bondpublicrelations.com or (504) 920-8012.
The fourth edition of Miami Project opens at The Deauville Resort with a VIP Preview from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesday, December 1st. The fair is open to the public Wednesday December 2nd through Sunday, December 6th. For hours, images, or press passes contact Kelly Freeman at kelly@artmarketproductions.com or (212) 518-6912.
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To complement the exhibition, Ferrara is publishing a 220-page book featuring photographs of the artwork with a collection of essays on guns and gun violence by nationally known thought leaders including: Walter Isaacson, curator Dan Cameron, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, Maria Cuomo Cole, New Orleans’ Mayor Mitchell J. Landrieu, Dan Gross of The Brady Campaign, Michael Waldman of The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, Lucia McBath mother of slain teen Jordan Davis, Rapper Lupe Fiasco, Poet E. Ethelbert Miller, Lolis Eric Elie, Trymaine Lee, Ace Atkins, Gregg Hurwitz, and Robert Crais. The book will be published by crowd-funding website Inkshares and will be available Spring 2016
Artists featured in Guns In The Hands Of Artists
Neil Alexander | Katrina Andry | Luis Cruz Azaceta | John Barnes | Ron Bechet | Brian Borrello | Mel Chin | Andrei Codrescu | Stephen Paul Day | Luke Dubois | Margaret Evangeline | Skylar Fein | Jonathan Ferrara | Rico Gatson | MK Guth | Generic Art Solutions | Marcus Kenney | Deborah Luster | Bradley McCallum | Adam Mysock | Sybille Perretti | Ted Riederer | Peter Sarkisian | Bob Tannen | Nicholas Varney | William Villalongo | Sidonie Villere | Paul Villinski
About Jonathan Ferrara Gallery
Jonathan Ferrara Gallery is a collective environment of creative visions; a commercial gallery with a public conscience. Artist, activist, and entrepreneur Jonathan Ferrara opened the gallery in 1998 to give artists a voice. Since its inception, the gallery has focused on cutting edge works by local, national and international artists with a sense of purpose, mission, and message. In recent years, it has gained a national reputation and increasingly presents artists and exhibitions in cities across the US and in Europe including Miami Project during Art Basel Miami Beach, the VOLTA Fair in New York City and Basel, Switzerland, Texas Contemporary, Art Market San Francisco, and Seattle Art Fair as well as, working with museums, institutions and private collections across the country. For more information visit jonathanferraragallery.com
About Art Market Productions
Art Market Productions is a partnership between Jeffrey Wainhause, Max Fishko, and the dealers they work with. Since 2011 Art Market Productions has produced a different type of art fair that focuses on creating the highest quality fair experience by connecting collectors with dealers in the most optimal settings and contexts. Art Market Productions is dedicated to improving the art world by creating platforms and expanding networks of connection. Art Market Productions produces six fairs each year: Art on Paper, Art Market San Francisco, Market Art + Design, Seattle Art Fair, Texas Contemporary, and Miami Project. For more information visit artmarketproductions.com
MIAMI PROJECT + GUNS IN THE HANDS OF ARTISTS Exhibition Hours
Preview :::
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
5:00pm - 10:00pm
For tickets please visit: artmarketproductions.com/tickets
General Hours :::
Wednesday, 2 December through 5 December | 11:00am to 7:00pm
Sunday, 6 December | 12:00pm to 6:00pm
