Join us and our Workspace Resident Researcher, Dana Tyrrell as we explore documentary photography centered in and around New York City in the 1970’s and 80’s, with special focus given to the work of Peter Hujar and David Wojnarowicz. We will look at these artists photographic works as a product of both their impoverished lifestyles and as a reaction to it. The work itself acts as a foil which prefigures and reacts in real time to the HIV/AIDS epidemic during that period of time. We will also touch upon the work  of Buffalo documentary photographer Milton Rogovin, and the differences between straight documentary photography, and documentary photography cum art object.

Dana Tyrrell is an artist, curator and writer living and working in Buffalo, New York. He holds an MFA in Visual Studies from the University at Buffalo (2015), a BA in Drawing & Painting and a BA in Art History, both from the State University of New York at Fredonia (2012). His work has been shown widely throughout Western New York, including solo exhibits with the Castellani Art Museum (2017) and Dreamland Art Gallery (2015). His curatorial practice includes exhibits at Anna Kaplan Contemporary (formerly BT&C Gallery), the Benjamin Gallery, Dreamland Art Gallery, and Sugar City Art Gallery.

Workspace Residency is supported by generous support by the County of Erie and County Executive Mark Poloncarz, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, individual members, businesses, and supporters