GAZE

September 10 - October 22, 2022

During the pandemic, photographer and GAZE curator, Jerry Russo, Zoom interviewed over 240 photographers, painters, sculptors, writers, poets, gallery owners, film and video creators, art therapists, and tattoo artists from all over the world. He asked what it was like for them living and working in the time of Covid. This oral and visual history will be included in the collections of the Smithsonian Institute Washington D.C., The New York Public Library and the W.E.B. Du Bois Library’s oral history collection at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

In GAZE, Jerry presents a multimedia survey of artwork by 22 artists. He says, "The directed gaze is as unsettling as it is tempting when we see into the eyes of strangers. A gaze can invite, insinuate, and reveal, and it can also contemplate, challenge and conceal. Exploring the act of looking, whether challenging or inviting, the images in this show mostly turn their gaze outward as the subjects look at the viewer with both affection and distance." We hope you can come and gaze, while the artwork looks back at you.