The week of November 15-22, 2008 saw one of the most significant art events in the Greater DC region take place, as it marked the launch of FotoWeek DC, the first annual gathering of a diverse and wide-ranging photography community in the nation’s capital, including photographers, museums, universities and all those involved in the profession across the metro D.C. area, including Virginia and Maryland.
FotoWeek DC brought together a huge number of venues, photographers and imaging professionals from every discipline to join with the public in celebration of the medium. It was one of the key steps forward not only in the medium, but for the arts in general, and I really hope that it happens every year.
It was amazing. There were exhibitions by the dozens, lectures, workshops, competitions, etc. It would be impossible to list all of the ones that I felt were the top ones, as in reality there wasn’t a single bad event in the program, but I hope to give you a taste of the event and in case that you missed it, ensure that it makes it to your calendar if/when it happens again.
One of the more spectacular events was when FotoWeek DC and area museums teamed to create an unprecedented, world premiere digital video slide show. Art aficionados were be treated to a dazzling display of large scale projections of photographs selected from the collections of some of Washington DC's most honored institutions, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Newseum.
The multi-story photographic projections created the largest outdoor slide show to date and exhibited some of the world's most famous photographic images ---from landscapes, to portraits; from history to art to science. “This is an opportunity for museums to reach audiences in new ways,” said Merry Foresta, Director of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative, “and present photographic images using exciting, and innovative technologies.” Theo Adamstein, FotoWeek DC founder and board president, said, “This is a powerful and unique project where architecture, photography and light combine to create a new medium.”
A new medium indeed!
Over at the American University Museum at the Katzen Art Center, Moravian-born theatre photographer Josef Koudelka showcased photographs of the 1968 Soviet invasion of the city of Prague, which crushed the political liberation of the nation then known as Czechoslovakia. Forty years after they were taken and smuggled out of the country, Koudelka’s searing images record a glimpse into a historic event, a brutal invasion, and his personal experience with conflict.
Smithsonian American Art Museum contributed “Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities.” The photographs by Ansel Adams offered the usual sunlight deserts, Taos churches, and Western skies, but the exhibition examined the friendship of two artists who were attracted to the distinct landscape of the American southwest and were committed to depicting its essence with modernist sensibilities. This exhibition was the first to pair these artists, and celebrated their mutual appreciation of the natural world and revealed the visual connections between O'Keeffe's paintings and Adams' photographs. The exhibition (which runs through January 2009) includes forty-two paintings from public and private collections and fifty-four photographs borrowed primarily from the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, which holds the largest single collection of Adams' work.

At the Gallery at Flashpoint, Elena Volkova, whose work I have been following for years, exhibited some of very ethereal work, which once explored the Baltic and now look with the same sensitive lenses to the air, as she photographs cloud formations from the windows of airplanes.

Many galleries approached the event by having group shows. Over at the Smith Farm Center for Healing and the Arts’ Healing Arts Gallery they presented “Visions of Paradise,” a group exhibition by some National Geographic photographers which as usual showcased the spectacular vision which has characterized this magazine for over a century now.

At Kathleen Ewing, the venerable DC photography gallery exhibited photographs by 20 DC area photographers, while Alexandria’s Multiple Exposures had a juried show where the juror (Steve Uzell) selected work from the gallery’s newest members. Georgetown’s Parish Gallery also had a group show titled “More than you know,” which included the work of photographers linked together by their relationship in Washington, DC. Bethesda’s Fraser Gallery selected to go with an exhibition of photographs from the photographers’ books and showcased people like Maxwell MacKenzie, Joyce Tenneson, Danny Conant and others.

A great event… and I’m already looking forward to the next Fotoweek event.

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