On Thursday, May 19, at 4 p.m., the artist will present \u201cFaces and Places in the Diaspora,\u201d a visiting artist lecture, in Room 177, Lawrence Hall. The talk also will be livestreamed on the UO Media Services YouTube channel.<\/p>\n
\u201cLikeness or Not: Reflections from the African Diaspora\u201d is a collection of photographsthat detail the culture and history derived from the African diaspora. The collection includes portraits of artists, activists, authors and musicians that are important figures in modern African American culture.<\/p>\n
The exhibition, organized by associate curator of photography Thom Sempere, also will feature Watts\u2019 photographs of historical publications.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor more than 50 years, the thrust of my photography practice and research has been grounded by an interest in the culture, history and migration of people of the African diaspora,\u201d Watts said. \u201cThe work has evolved into a variety of related series, two of which are represented in the exhibition: portraits of folks who I have been drawn to photograph because they are not letting outside forces determine how they present themselves to the world and who seem to be comfortable in their own skins, and historical African American book covers and pages as both objects and reflections of the narrative of history and in some cases briefs for White supremacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sempere said the exhibition offers an opportunity to look over the shoulder of a keen observer of both historical and contemporary representations of persons in the African diaspora.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis subjects are usually aware of his presence, and his engagement with them is central to the work,\u201d he said. \u201cCounterpointing the inherent celebratory nature of the portraits is his series that investigates the history of representations of African Americans in print, the motivations of the authors of those representations, and the narratives they wish to assert. Together, this powerful combination is an important and thoughtful gift to the JSMA collection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watts is a photographer, archivist, curator and Professor Emeritus of art at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research and artwork centers around the \u201ccultural landscape,\u201d primarily in communities in the African diaspora in different parts of the world.<\/p>\n
He is the co-author of \u201cHarlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era,\u201d \u201cNew Orleans Suite: Music and Culture in Transition,\u201d and \u201cPortraits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The UO\u2019s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art highlights the photography of Lewis Watts in the new exhibit \u201cLikeness or Not: Reflections from the African Diaspora,\u201d which is on view through Sept. 4 in the J Focus West Gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":7464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,16],"tags":[7,30,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-7467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"category-news","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-news"},"yoast_head":"\n