Sammy, Atlantic City, photo by Will Steacy, courtesy the artist.

Photography as a medium has always been actively concerned with describing identity. While a portrait is typically an artistic representation of a person where verisimilitude is the goal, here the inquiry is questioned and expanded. Rather than employing a camera to create an objective document, the artists in this exhibition are often involved in constructing narrative sequences that pose questions with open-ended outcomes. As the title, The Truth is Not in the Mirror… suggests, photography has the power to imply, construct, and/or deny a narrative. Many of the photographers are contemporary story tellers and, in this sense, their work reflects facets of our ever-changing precepts about family, identity, truth and fiction.

The artists in the exhibition: Tina Barney, Claire Beckett, Valerie Belin, Dawoud Bey, Jesse Burke, Kelli Connell, Michael Corridore, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Rineke Dijkstra, Jason Florio, Andy Freeberg, Lee Friedlander, David Hockney, Nikki S. Lee, Graham Miller, Martin Parr, Thomas Ruff, The Sartorialist, Alec Soth, Larry Sultan, Mickalene Thomas and Aperture Commissioned Green Cart artists LaToya Ruby Frazier and Will Steacy.

Wednesday, March 30 Lecture – Photographers LaToya Ruby Frazier and Jesse Burke  6 p.m.

Wednesday, March 9 Lecture – Photographers Kelli Connell and Will Steacy 6pm

Exhibition on view through May 22, 2011

Haggerty Museum of Art,
Marquette University 13th and Clybourn streets

Tony by Will Steacy

Down These Mean Streets, a solo show of work by photographer Will Steacy, opens at Michael Mazzeo gallery in Chelsea Thursday, June 10th. Steacy, a contributing photographer to Aperture’s ongoing Greencart comission and a 2008 Tierney fellow, spent the past three years traveling to American cities and walking at night from the airport to the city’s central business district with his large format camera. The resulting images provide a rarely seen view of post-industrialist American inner cities, as years of neglect have left them with limited resources. The exhibition will include never before seen images, as well as a special limited edition newspaper (available for $5 at the opening) which is part of a larger installation on display exploring Steacy’s working process through journals, research notes, contact sheets, shot lists, influences and maps.

Click here to listen to Daylight Magazine’s podcast of Will Steacy discussing Down These Mean Streets

Down These Mean Streets
June 10 – July 16 2010
Opening Reception Thursday, June 10th, 6pm – 8pm

Michael Mazzeo Gallery
526 W. 26th Street
New York, NY
212-7416599

There will also be an 8×10 limited edition of 50 of the image Tony, San Francisco, 2010 available with the newspaper for $50.