Exhibit at Handwerker Gallery to Show Paris Then and Now

The Handwerker Gallery will continue its Contemporary Art Series with Imaging the Metropolis: Views of Paris a Century Apart. Featuring the images of 19th-century etching master Charles Méryon and the 20th-century photographs of Jules Backus, the exhibit will open on Thursday, November 1, with a reception from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. The exhibit will run through December 16. In conjunction with the exhibit, associate professor of art history Lauren O’Connell will give a lecture, "Image and Imagination in 19th-Century Paris: The Case of the Tour Saint-Jacques," on Thursday, November 29, at 5:30 p.m. in the gallery. All events are free and open to the public.

Though Méryon (1821–68) and Backus (1944–96) lived a century apart, both men encountered forces that were changing the face not only of Paris but also of other large cities across Europe. In Méryon’s time, the French capital was being dramatically transformed from an ancient hub into a modern metropolis. Older buildings, many of them dating from the Middle Ages, were being remodeled or torn down to make way for broad avenues, dramatic vistas, and structures such as the Arc de Triomphe. Troubled by this demolition, Méryon spent the early 1850s recording the architectural heritage of old Paris in a series of etchings. Though these plates were never exhibited together, the artist considered them part of a set. The images that will be displayed at the Handwerker are part of the gallery’s permanent collection.

The forces of urbanization that Méryon faced had long run their course by the time Backus, an American photographer, showed up in Paris in the 1990s. What caught Backus’s eye was not the buildings so much as the images and slogans being stenciled on them. Part graffiti, part murals, part political tracts, the stencils (known as pochoirs) provided their makers with a public canvas for their art as well as for their politics. Backus had no trouble identifying with the left-of-center messages and irreverent humor being stenciled on Paris buildings, and the fact that the stencil artists worked collaboratively and sought to interact with passersby also appealed to him. When Backus printed his photos, he used special techniques that suggest the crumbling walls and cracked plaster on which the original stencils were drawn.

The 45 photographs on display at the Handwerker are selections from Ambush in the Streets: A Photographer’s Encounter with the Stencil Art of Paris, which was curated by Backus’s colleagues Mary Peacock and Brian Drolet.

The gallery is open Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. (Thursday until 9:00 p.m.); Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.; and Sunday, 2:00–6:00 p.m.

For more information call the gallery at 274-3018 or contact Jelena Stojanovic, gallery director and assistant professor of art history, at 274-3548. Information on the exhibit can also be found at www.ithaca.edu/handwerker.