Traces: Zora Murff and Lorenzo Triburgo

TRACES: PHOTOGRAPHS BY

ZORA MURFF AND LORENZO TRIBURGO

Exhibition: February 28 to April 4, 2019

Opening: 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 28, 2019

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Traces: Photographs by Zora Murff and Lorenzo Triburgo.  This exhibition was curated by Jodie Mim Goodnough, Assistant Professor of Photography at Salve Regina University.

How can photography talk about trauma and violence without re-inflicting that violence on its subjects? The two photographers in Traces, Zora Murff and Lorenzo Triburgo, find ways to use the power of the image to question assumptions about historically marginalized groups, using specificity and story to ask the viewer to look past what they think they know and to acknowledge violence both visible and invisible.

Photographed in the historically black neighborhood of North Omaha, Nebraska, Zora Murff’s At No Point In Between evaluates the fallout of prejudicial housing policies—known as “redlining”—that have affected the area and posits them as a form of slow violence. Murff challenges the photograph’s use as an objective document; addressing the convergence of the physical and social landscape; and reinterpreting complex narratives about race, power, and violence. Creating a collection of images scrutinized in both their historical and contemporary contexts, he metaphorically connects the body and the landscape, fast and slow violence. By intertwining witnessing and critical analysis, he provides a deeper understanding of systemic white supremacy and the resulting violence therein.

Policing Gender by Lorenzo Triburgo is an installation of photographs and audio. The photographs are abstract metaphors on absence and imprisonment and the audio is a compilation of voices of LGBTQ prisoners with whom Triburgo has been writing on a long-term basis. The title, “Policing Gender,” refers to the surveillance, policing, and punishment of LGBTQ bodies in the United States—a phenomenon most commonly visualized by the violent police raids of gay and lesbian bars in the 1950s and 60’s, but that started at least a century earlier and continues today. In the work, Triburgo employs visual connotations of landscape and portrait photography to cast a critical lens on notions of the “Natural” and the politics of queer representation, this time in service of prison abolition as a crucial queer issue.

Zora J Murff is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of Arkansas. Zora received his MFA in Studio Art from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and holds a BS in Psychology from Iowa State University. His work has been exhibited nationally, internationally, and featured online including Aperture Magazine, The New Yorker, VICE Magazine, The British Journal of Photography, and The New York Times. In 2018, Zora was selected for the 2019 Light Work Artist-in-Residence Program, named the Daylight Photo Award Winner in 2017, and was also selected as a LensCulture 2017 Top 50 Emerging Talent with his collaborative partner Rana Young. Zora’s first monograph, Corrections, was published by Aint-Bad Editions in 2015 and his second monograph, LOST, Omaha, was published by Kris Graves Projects in 2018.

Lorenzo Triburgo holds a BA from New York University in Photography and Gender Studies and an MFA in Photography and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. He lives and works in NYC and teaches art and gender studies online for Oregon State University and the School of Visual Arts. His work has been featured on Slate, Huffington Post, HuffPo-Live and the “The Transgender Studies Reader 2” published by Routledge. His artworks have been exhibited in major cities in the U.S., Europe, and Asia and are in the permanent collection of the Portland Art Museum. His project Transportraits won first place in the international Pride Photo Award based in The Netherlands and he was awarded the Portland Regional Arts and Culture Council Grant for his project Policing Gender, addressing mass incarceration from a queer perspective.

Jodie Mim Goodnough is the Assistant Professor of Photography at Salve Regina University. She currently serves as Northeast Chapter Chair for the Society for Photographic Education.

An opening reception for Traces: Photographs by Zora Murff and Lorenzo Triburgo is scheduled for February 28, 2019 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.  The evening will also feature a short artist talk by Lorenzo Triburgo at 5:30 p.m. The exhibition runs through April 4, 2019.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is handicap accessible with parking along Lawrence and Leroy Avenues.  Its exhibits are open Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:00 to 6:00 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays 11:00 to 5:00 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays noon to 4:00 p.m.  The gallery is closed on Mondays.  We invite you to join us.