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Artist Lecture: Eric GottesmanPost an Event »

San Francisco Art Institute (Main Campus)

August 3 - August 3, 2011

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800 Chestnut Street San Francisco, CA 94133
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Artist Lecture: Eric Gottesman “Old Picture, Woman Redacted”, 2010. 8 inches x 10 inches. C-print
Photographer and filmmaker Eric Gottesman is a featured artist in SFAI’s exhibition "East Meets West: Artadia Awardees 2009 Boston," on view July 14–September 10 in the Walter and McBean Galleries. In a photographic series "Studio Karmen" and the video "Another Beautiful," Gottesman documents his interaction with Ahmad Taher al-Sefferini, a Palestinian-Jordanian studio photographer in Amman, Jordan whom he first met in 2006 but whose studio was established in 1970. Central to the studio are numerous backdrops that offer a sort of fantasyland: Customers stand in front of fake hanging gardens, a library, a plastic Donald Duck, a classic full-sized car, or, most importantly, a hand-sculpted recreation of Sefferin, Ahmad’s childhood village in Palestine. Gottesman’s project is a portrait of a studio—one whose existence is threatened by the prevalence of digital cameras and the decreasing public need for studio photographs—as well as a visual meditation on a space constructed from the nostalgic imagination of one man, a refugee from Palestine and a refugee from his own time. Gottesman received his BA from Duke University in 1998 and his MFA from Bard College in 2007. He has taught and curated at multiple venues internationally and has exhibited and been published extensively. In addition to the 2009 Artadia award, he has received the Aaron Siskind Individual Fellowship, the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship, the Fulbright Fellowship, and the Apex Art Franchise Award. In 2012 he will be the artist-in-residence at Amherst College. Gottesman will be in conversation with Jessica Ingram. www.ericgottesman.net San Francisco Art Institute, Lecture Hall 800 Chestnut Street San Francisco, CA 94133 Free and open to the public