February Show: Birney Imes

Birney Imes

Reception: January 2, 2012 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

For more than 20 years Birney Imes roamed the countryside of his native Mississippi photographing the people and places he encountered along the way. Working in both black and white and color, Imes' photographs take viewers inside juke joints and dilapidated restaurants scattered across that landscape. There he introduces the viewer to, as one writes put it, "the characters and locales that linger in the margins of Southern memory and culture."

Imes' photographs have been collected in three books: Juke Joint, Whispering Pines and Partial to Home, and have been exhibited in solo shows in the United States and Europe. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, La Biblioteque Nationale in Paris and many public and private collections in the U.S. and abroad.

Throughout his career Imes worked with a tripod mounted roll-film camera loaded with black and white film. Even while making his acclaimed juke joint photographs, Imes continued to pursue a quieter, more intimate vision he saw in grays and blacks. This Rosenzweig exhibit draws from that group of pictures.