ART IN AMERICA: Memory City

 

©Alex Webb, from “Memory City” (with Rebecca Norris Webb), Radius Books and Thames and Hudson, spring 2014, as published in Art in America, April 2014

“[Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb] were attracted by [Rochester’s] rich photographic tradition (besides Kodak’s 134 years there, it’s also home to the George Eastman House, the country’s first photographic museum, and the Visual Studies Workshop, a center for photography and other media arts founded by Nathan Lyons) and its historical significance as a center of progressive activity during the 19th century (counting Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony as residents). They turned their attention, however, to today’s Rochester: ‘a city,’ wrote Alex Webb in an email to A.i.A., ‘struggling with many of the urban ills that bedevil so many U.S. Rust Belt cities’ yet endowed with ‘its own unique sense of energy and community.’

Memory City is the couple’s second book, following their exploration of modern-day Cuba in 2009’s Violet Isle. Photographing Rochester’s streets, Webb contributes black-and-white images taken with his last rolls of Kodachrome (which can no longer be processed in color), interspersed with digital full-color pictures, whereas Norris Webb, using only film, offers still lifes and portraits of women from the region. ‘We knew from the start we wanted the conceptual collaboration to be as layered as Rochester itself and the many cities, past and present, within in,’ Norris Webb wrote, with the pair aiming for ‘an elegiac tone befitting the fading days of Kodak and film.'”—ART IN AMERICA, April 2014

WORKSHOP UPDA

• —NEW WORKSHOP ADDED: FINDING YOUR VISION: SAN FRANCISCO, SAT. AUG. 23 THRU WED. AUG. 27, 2014, Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission Street, San Francisco: For more information, please contact Alex and Rebecca: webbnorriswebb@gmail.com
• NEW WORKSHOP ADDED: PHOTO PROJECT 2014, Sunday Oct. 26-Sat. Nov. 1, 2014.  This intimate bookmaking workshop is open to only 10 photographers.  To learn more, including how to apply: http://www.webbnorriswebb.co/#mi=4&pt=0&pi=3
• SCHOLARSHIP  FOR “FINDING YOUR VISION @ FESTIWAL LODZ FOR A POLISH PHOTOGRAPHER SPONSORED BY MAGNUM PHOTOS.  DEADLINE MAY 12.  MORE INFORMATION HERE IN POLISH.  AND LINK HERE TO ENGLISH TRANSLATION
• Saturday May 3 thru Friday May 10, FINDING YOUR VISION, NEW YORK. DUE TO A CANCELLATION, THERE’S NOW ONE SPOT left in this annual May workshop. To apply, please contact Alex and Rebecca directly at this email: webbnorriswebb@gmail.com

 

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Blue Secondhand Prom Dress,” from “Memory City” (with Alex Webb), Radius Books, US/T&H, Europe, spring 2014