Johnna MacArthur BETWEEN YOU AND ME (images from the I & Thou archive) February 23, 2007

Like The Spice Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of color and black and white photographs by Johnna MacArthur. The exhibition will open on Friday, February 23, and close on Saturday, March 24, with a reception for the artist on Friday, February 23, from 6:30 to 10:30 pm. This will be the artist's first solo exhibition of photographs in New York City.

Known for her multi media installations and performance based video vignettes, Johnna MacArthur has brought her love of process, endurance, and courted interruptions to I & Thou. The project’s title, appropriated from Martin Buber’s acclaimed classic, recalls Buber’s notions of standing in relation to an Other and to the inherent complexities of this mutable exchange.

BETWEEN YOU AND ME is a selection of 30” x 36” C-prints and 11” x 14” silver gelatin prints culled from the artist’s expanding database of people she has known between 1972 and 2004. Ms. MacArthur invites her subjects to make a portrait at a location of their choice. She transports her 4x5 camera and lighting equipment to settings as varied as bedrooms and mountaintops where she arms her subjects with the cable release. Prior to the moment of “click,” MacArthur asserts herself as the photographer through dense composition and by directing the subject’s gaze toward her rather than the camera’s lens.

For those individuals who have died prior to being photographed, or for those who have declined to participate, MacArthur generates an image of their first name. These alternate images are placeholders for those who cannot be excluded.

Johnna MacArthur was born in 1972 and raised in New York City. She received her BA in photography and psychology from Bennington College, Bennington, VT in 1994 and her MFA from School of Visual Arts, MFA Photography and Related Media Department, New York, NY in 1996. From 2000 – 2005 Ms. MacArthur was a visiting artist/ assistant professor of photography in the Department of Transmedia at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.

Johnna MacArthur’s work has been exhibited at Apex Art C.P., New York, NY; Bucknell Art Gallery, Lewisburg, PA; Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo, NY; ICA, London; Impakt Festival, Utrect, The Netherlands; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and P.S.1, New York, NY. She currently lives and works in New York City.

Official Website: http://www.likethespice.com