Caption This!
An installation by CH artists in residence Barbara Levine and Paige Ramey in collaboration with Martin Venezky at the Houston Center for Photography, November 1 - 19, 2023.
About the Exhibition and collaboration:
“We are accustomed to the look and feel of old photographs and sometimes they start to blur together. But add a caption directly onto a photograph — handwritten, typed, emblazoned, scratched — and we are magically drawn in.
This installation presents a series of photographs we think have that magic. Through collage, enlargements, details, and original vintage photographs, we offer you humor, sweetness, confession and mystery.
Each caption is an intervention that inserts itself into the picture. It is an additional voice inviting us to re-experience the image and challenge what we thought we knew. Often the caption contradicts the image, can rarely be ignored, and has the final word.
This project is part of the artist in residence community partnership program at Cherryhurst House.
Below are installation photos of the exhibition-
The Cherryhurst House Fellowship call was an incredible success! Over 80 applicants from 23 different states in the U.S. and seven different countries applied to come to Houston to study the Levine/Ramey Photography Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts.
The three teams chosen, Jennifer Greenburg and Charles Phoenix (Fall 2021); Catherine Zuromskis and Meggan Gould (Winter 2022); and Pablo Lerma and Cat Lachowsky (Spring 2022) represent a broad spectrum of artists and writers. From TV personalities to dedicated photographers, university professors and bookmakers. Check out Behind the Scenes for from the fellowships.
About the Photo Collection and the Fellowship
In the words of Malcom Daniel, Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography:
While some might call it “vernacular,” Barbara Levine and Paige Ramey affectionately refer to their collection as “PhotoMania,” a nickname that better conveys the joy viewers find in the material, and the passion with which they built their collection. The collection digs deep into various, interwoven themes with examples of material rarely found elsewhere: African-American Studio Portraits, LGBTQ Life, Mexico and the Border, Altered and Manipulated Photos, Gun Culture, Science and Industry, Sideshow Stars and Superheroes, and more.Objects in the collection include amateur snapshots, photo booth strips, real-photo postcards, fotoescultura, photo ID badges, photographic jewelry, embroidered photographs, comic books, and more.Altogether, the 5,000 object collection tells a unique and complicated story of photography’s history, one that encompasses a broad range of objects, invites a dialogue between high and low art, and speaks to our shared PhotoMania.
Takings its cues from the collection it celebrates, the Cherryhurst House Fellowship is unique in the field. It invites a collaborative application from one artist (not limited to photographers) and one scholar (historian, art historian, writer, etc.) for a week-long fellowship at MFAH’s Anne Wilkes Tucker Photography Study Center. A fellowship provides access for both applicants to the Barbara Levine and Paige Ramey collection, along with other works of art in MFAH’s extensive collection; an invitation to stay at Cherryhurst House and a stipend.
We can't wait to introduce our fellows to the collection, to Cherryhurst House and all that Houston has to offer!
Behind the scenes with the CH Fellows!
Spring 2022
Pablo Lerma and Cat Zuromskis, were the Cherryhurst House Fellows in Spring 2022. For one week they studied the Barbara Levine and Paige Ramey Collection of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Here they are in the Anne Wilkes Tucker Photography Study Center talking about their experience and and a few of their favorites from the collection.
Winter 2022
To conclude their week of study Meggan and Cat gave an informal presentation about their experience with the collection and some of the objects that inspired them. Below are vintage photo id badges and Jason shows artist Keliy Anderson- Staley and Director of the Houston Center for Photography, Dorota Biczel, pages from antique photograph albums.
Fall 2021
