Capital City Arts Initiative

On Tuesday, March 3, 2015, the Capital City Arts Initiative [CCAI] will present a talk by artist Dr. Catherine Zurmoskis. Her illustrated talk, “Photography in the Everyday: the Lives of Images” is the next in CCAI’s Nevada Neighbors series. The talk will take place at 7pm at the BRIC, 108 E Proctor St, Carson City. There will be an informal reception for Dr. Zurmoskis preceding the event at 6:15pm. The presentation and reception are free, and the public is cordially invited.

Dr. Zuromskis’ talk will examine the complex language of everyday photographs.
While almost everyone takes snapshots, we don’t often think much about what this kind of photography means for us as individuals or in a broader social context. Indeed, we often think of personal photographs as outside of history, based solely on individual desires. Drawing from her research for the book Snapshot Photography: The Lives of Images, Dr. Zuromskis will show that, in fact, personal photographs are deeply significant to the way we understand our personal relations and our place in society. This talk will explore the technological and social origins of this ubiquitous photographic practice, as well as its contemporary conventions in the digital age. In addition, Dr. Zuromskis will look at the ongoing dialogue many contemporary artists have had with the language of snapshot photography as both an aesthetic and a relational form of image making.

Catherine Zuromskis is an associate professor of art and art history at the University of New Mexico. She received a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester and an M.A. in Art History and Criticism from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Before teaching at UNM she was a visiting assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Zuromskis is the author of Snapshot Photography: The Lives of Images (MIT Press, 2013) and the editor and author of the catalog The Factory (La Fabrica, 2011) which accompanied the exhibition “From the Factory to the World: Photography and the Warhol Community” which she also curated as part of the official section of Madrid’s PhotoEspaña Festival in 2011. Her writings on photography and visual culture have appeared in The Velvet Light Trap, Art Journal, Criticism, American Quarterly, and the anthology Photography: Theoretical Snapshots (Routledge, 2008).

As part of her CCAI visit, Dr. Zurmoskis will give her talk to art students and faculty at Douglas High School and at Sierra Nevada College.

The Capital City Arts Initiative is an artist-centered organization committed to the encouragement and support of artists and the arts and culture of Carson City and the surrounding region. The Initiative is committed to community building for the area’s diverse adult and youth populations through art projects and exhibitions, live events, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online projects.

The Carson City Library co-sponsors the Nevada Neighbors series with CCAI. The Capital City Arts Initiative [CCAI] is funded in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, John Ben Snow Memorial Trust, Nevada Arts Council, City of Carson City, Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, U.S. Bank Foundation, Comstock Foundation for History and Culture, and John and Grace Nauman Foundation.

[top image: Catherine Zurmoskis]
[second image: Nevada Neighbors audience at the BRIC prior to her talk]
[third image: Catherine speaking to art students at Douglas High School, Minden, Nevada]
[bottom image: Nevada Neighbors flier]