September 26 – October 24, 2014
work by Joseph Rodriguez, and Lili Holzer-Glier
Sep. 26, 2014 – Oct. 24, 2014
Mon–Fri: 9 am–9 pm | Sat–Sun: 9 am–5 pm
Migrantes and Aftermath are two stories, two exhibitions about the remarkable strength of the displaced, the marginalized in America. But these two exhibitions are also a pairing, a dialogue between professor and former student. Both Migrantes and Aftermath represent the underrepresented, the nameless, and the invisible at the center of the debates surrounding the immigration fracas and disaster response. The hope of both projects is to make the Goliaths that are immigration and natural disasters, both specific and, importantly, human. In Migrantes, a project that spanned more than a decade, between 1995 and 2006, photographer Joseph Rodriguez challenges the idea of the interchangeable Mexican worker, an insidious archetype in American culture.
Migrantes is a story about people. It is about the dignity of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances who prevail no matter how pervasive political acrimony. The narratives are of the time, when, though immigration reform holds promise of a future to many, it is still going largely unattended in the present. Migrantes reveals the recent past with the hope that change can be made.
Inspired by Mr. Rodriguez, her teacher and mentor, Lili Holzer-Glier emulates that photographer’s commitment to chronicling under-reported stories of significant social import. Aftermath offers a glimpse of post-Hurricane Sandy in Queens, New York: the damaged landscape, the still-scattered debris and the scars — both emotional and physical —seared into storm victims. A full year after the storm ripped through the burroughs of New York City, many coastal neighborhoods remain witness to the storm’s ravages. In Rockaway Beach, Queens, abandoned houses are plastered with plywood, some tilting at crazy angles as they are left to rot. Sinkholes line city blocks and some streets have caved into the ocean. And still, low-lying blocks of homes flood. Dramatically.
