Detail: Kota Ezawa is currently on view through November 1 at the museum
Rochester, N.Y., October 16, 2020—The George Eastman Museum will host a virtual artist’s talk with Kota Ezawa in conversation with Bruce Barnes, Ron and Donna Fielding Director of the George Eastman Museum, on Thursday, October 22 at 6 p.m. The talk is free, and registration via Zoom is required as space is limited.
Detail: Kota Ezawa is currently on view at the Eastman Museum through November 1. The work on display is from Ezawa’s series The History of Photography Remix, in which the artist created digital drawings of iconic photographs, family snapshots, and other images flooding contemporary life. He transcribed each picture into simplified shapes of flat color. In doing so, Ezawa evokes the source image just enough to trigger its recollection. The “remixed” photograph, presented as a backlit transparency, stands on its own as a new artwork. Its mix of past and present, public and private, embodies the way pictorial meanings proliferate in today’s visual culture. Ezawa acknowledges this phenomenon as a personal one. Each person’s mind acts as an involuntary archivist, pausing over particularly resonant images as it shapes understanding of the world.
The work on view at the museum is Ezawa’s “remix” of Nan Goldin’s frequently reproduced photograph Nan and Brian in Bed from her 35mm slide show, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. A photographic print of that image has been in the Eastman Museum’s collection since 1988, shortly after Goldin emerged as a leading practitioner of a new, autobiographical approach to documentary photography.
The presentation at the Eastman Museum complements Deborah Ronnen Fine Art’s exhibition Kota Ezawa: Taking a Knee, on display through November 7 at R1 Studios, 1328b University Avenue, and a presentation of Ezawa’s work at the Memorial Art Gallery.
Virtual Artist Talk
Kota Ezawa in conversation with Bruce Barnes, George Eastman Museum
Thursday, October 22 at 6 p.m.
Register via Zoom
Renowned artist Kota Ezawa explores imagery from news, art history, and pop culture through appropriation. In his series The History of Photography Remix, the artist created digital drawings of iconic photographs, family snapshots, and other images that flood contemporary life to comment on the ways in which images permeate and resonate in our memories. Join us for this virtual artist's talk as Ezawa dives deep into his work from The History of Photography Remix. The talk is free for all, advance registration is required as space is limited. Visit eastman.org for more information.
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