The Friends of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg
to host the annual Pick-a-Pic event Jan. 21
St. Petersburg, Fla. (Jan. 8, 2018) – Help the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg add to its sweeping collection of photography on Sunday, Jan. 21 during the MFA Friends of Photography’s annual Pick-a-Pic event. Through the event, the MFA continues to grow its fine art photography collection, which is one of the finest in the Southeast.
Each year the MFA’s Friends of Photography group holds an event to display three photographs selected from galleries and artists from around the world. Attendees then vote on which photograph the group will purchase for the museum.
Robin O’Dell, Curator of the MFA Photographic Collection, selected the three photos with input from the curatorial department and the Friends of Photography Board. The goal is to find photographs that fill in gaps in the current collection. This year’s choices span the globe:
Andrea Grützner was born in East Germany. The untitled photograph is from her Erbgericht (Guesthouse) series where she captures fragments of a historical guesthouse in Germany. Working in analogue with colored gels, Grützner combines the abstract with the representational: part of a doorway and shelf is overlaid by the pink shadow of a round hanging globe that could be either a hanging lamp or a Christmas bulb, depending on the unknown size and distance. A member of collective Exposure Twelve, Grützner is a winner of a Photo Vision Sponsorship Award, the Source Cord Prize (2014), and the LEAD Award (2015).
Shai Kremer is an Israeli artist. The selected photograph Gidon, Dining Room, 2008 comes from his Infected Landscape series, which documents the imprint of the military on the Israeli landscape.
An abandoned room with a dirt-covered floor and peeling paint frames a view through a window-shaped hole in the wall. Through the gap one can catch a glimpse of the war torn countryside. On the wall in Hebrew is a quote by David Ben-Gurion, “Every Jewish mother should know that the life of her son is in the caring hands of the proper general.” Kremer is in museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, among many others.
Fatoumata Diabaté is from Bamako, Mali. She studied at the Cadre de promotion pour la Formation en Photographie, Bamako; the Centre d’Enseignement Professionnel, Vevey, Switzerland; and the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art et de Design, Nancy, France. She has had solo exhibitions in France, Switzerland, Ghana, and Mali; and has photographed for the World Press Photo agency, Oxfam, Rolex and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others. The featured photograph, L’homme en animal, comes from a series of masked young people, yet this image features an open-faced young man in a classroom. Seemingly caught mid-sentence, the teenager with his painted face energetically engages the viewer to wonder what life experience or tradition he is in the middle of explaining. The setting is familiar and foreign all at the same time.
The third annual Pick-a-Pic event, sponsored by SSL Store, takes place Sunday, Jan. 21 from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Registration is $35 for members of Friends of Photography and $45 for non-members. Registration covers event and museum admission. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays, and the museum galleries will be open prior to the event. Galleries will be closed following the event.
Register for Pick-a-Pic online: http://bit.ly/2B7JTL4
The Friends of Photography are dedicated to increasing public awareness of photography through lectures, seminars, and workshops. Members help promote and augment the museum’s photography collection, the finest in the Southeast.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
The MFA at 255 Beach Drive N.E. has a world-class collection, with works by Monet, Morisot, Rodin, O’Keeffe, Willem de Kooning, and many other great artists. Also displayed are ancient Greek and Roman, Egyptian, Asian, African, pre-Columbian, and Native American art. Selections from the photography collection, one of the largest and finest in the Southeast, are now on view in a gallery dedicated to the medium. Kristen A. Shepherd is the Executive Director.
Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, until 8 p.m. on Thursday, and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is only $5 after 5 p.m. on Thursday. Regular admission is $17 for adults, $15 for those 65 and older, and $10 for students seven and older, including college students with current I.D. Children under seven and Museum members are admitted free. Groups of 10 or more adults pay only $12 per person and children $4 each with prior reservations. The MFA Café is open from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Special ticket prices apply for entrance to Star Wars and the Power of Costume. For more information, please call 727.896.2667 or visit mfastpete.org.