Wisconsin photographers John Shimon and Julie Lindemann have made a career of conflating the contemporary with the historical. In the portraits that form the bulk of their oeuvre, they make use of antique cameras, modern lens technology, artificial light, and contemporary pop culture to create portraits of the people in their native state. The result is rich and subtly modulated prints with deep resonances in the history of portraiture.
The exhibition juxtaposes 43 of their original photographs and a multimedia installation with 54 portraits from the Milwaukee Art Museums Collection, including daguerreotypes, as well as photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, Diane Arbus, Sally Mann, and Larry Clark, among others, to present new perspectives on one of the oldest artistic genres portraiture.
Unmasked & Anonymous is the result of a two-year collaboration between John Shimon and Julie Lindemann and Milwaukee Art Museum curator Lisa Hostetler.
Softcover, 68 pages; over 60 color and black and white images.