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Houston-based artist Keliy Anderson-Staley’s collection of portraits is called “[hyphen] Americans”, which refers to the hyphenated character of her subjects’ identities (Irish-American, African-American, etc.), while emphasizing their shared identity as Americans. Containing thousands of portraits of individuals, her archive offers a survey of American demographics that dramatically expands upon the largely Caucasian interpretation of American society recorded by nineteenth-century tintypes. Titled with only a name and the date of the exposure, the photographs embrace the individuality of each subject and push back against any attempt to further classify or decode the images within the context of identity politics. At once contemporary and timeless, “[hyphen] Americans” presents a broadly inclusive portrait of America while raising larger questions about the role played by photographic technologies in defining cultural identity, both historically and in present times. See “[hyphen] Americans” by Keliy Anderson-Staley, on display, post-security, in Terminal 3. http://bit.ly/2EM1ZD8
This image was posted on June 03, 2019.