Race Stories: The Writings and Legacy of Maurice Berger

On Thursday, April 10, join us for a special “Meet the Artist” night focused on the writings and legacy of Maurice Berger. Berger, who died in 2020, is author of the award-winning collection of essays Race Stories: Essays on the Power of Images (Aperture 2024). A panel featuring curator and writer Marvin Heiferman (who edited Race Stories), interdisciplinary artist and writer Qiana Mestrich, and internationally acclaimed artist Wendy Ewald, will delve into the book’s themes, which explore how photographic images have been instrumental in both perpetuating and combating racial stereotypes. Copies of Race Stories will be available for sale. This event will be live-streamed on CPW’s YouTube page at 6pm.

Join us every Thursday evening at CPW, when we host illuminating talks with local and visiting artists. “Meet the Artist” allows the public to get to know new work, to hear about artistic processes, and to meet friends and other local artists. The evening takes place at CPW’s gallery at 25 Dederick Street in Kingston, NY. It is free and open to the public. Coffee, tea, and snacks are served. “Meet the Artist” is made possible by a generous grant from the Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation.

Maurice Berger (1956–2020; born in New York) was a cultural historian, curator, and writer, who spent much of his career studying and teaching racial literacy through innovative visual literacy projects. In influential essays, books, and provocative museum exhibitions, Berger gathered and presented compelling photographic images to engage and challenge readers and viewers into reconsidering both cultural and personal assumptions and prejudices. His books include White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness (2000) and For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights (2010), which was also one of the premier projects mounted by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He received honors and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, Association of Art Museum Curators, and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and was nominated for an Emmy Award.

Marvin Heiferman is an independent curator, writer, and organizer for projects about photography and visual culture for institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian Institution, International Center of Photography, Whitney Museum of American Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, and the New Museum. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Gagosian Gallery, CNN, Artforum, Design Observer, Aperture, and BOMB.

Qiana Mestrich is an interdisciplinary artist, photo historian, and writer based in the Hudson Valley. Her autobiographical artwork and research engages issues around Black and mixed-race identity, motherhood/mothering, and women’s corporate labor. In 2007, she founded the blog Dodge & Burn: Decolonizing Photography History, an arts initiative that advocates for photographers of color. Mestrich’s book based on this blog, Decolonization and Diversity in Contemporary Photography: The Dodge & Burn Interviews, is forthcoming from Routledge later this month.

Artist and educator Wendy Ewald has spent over 50 years collaborating with children, families, and teachers worldwide. Her projects explore identity and cultural differences, encouraging children to use cameras to record themselves, their families, and their communities, and to articulate their fantasies and dreams. In blurring the distinction of individual authorship and throwing into doubt the artist’s intentions, power, and identity, Ewald creates opportunities to look at the meaning and use of photographs in our lives with fresh perceptions. A MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow, she has exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery, ICP, and the Whitney Biennial. She has published 14 books, including Portraits and Dreams (2020) and The Devil Is Leaving His Cave (2022).

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