June 2007
For Immediate Release:

Rob Amory’s Intimate Digital Portraiture Comes to the Graduate Center

From July 10 to August 9 the Art Gallery of the Graduate Center will present Rob Amory, The Light of Others.  The exhibition features 32 large-format, digital photographic portraits depicting intimate close-ups of the faces of unknown subjects. The Art Gallery is located on the first floor of the Graduate Center (365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street). Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 12-6 pm. 

“To look at another is to see yourself,” says Amory. “I use photography to assemble a cast whose collective presence provokes questions about our relations to others and our self image. I am a writer populating the stage with characters among whom the viewing audience co-mingles, observing and observed within the intense presences of nameless diverse individuals.”

After successively dedicating his energies to kinetic sculpture, gestural painting, and computer-based abstract graphics, Amory turned to photography in 2004 because of a desire to address narrative content. As Marcia Vetrocq states in her essay for the exhibition catalogue, “...he was drawn to the [digital] medium’s image-making immediacy, to the challenge of engaging directly with a living subject, and to the enduring fascination of the human visage in art...”

During the past two years, Amory has had solo exhibitions at the Cape Ann Historical Society in Gloucester, MA (2006) and the Janos Gat Gallery, New York (2007). In addition to the show at the Art Gallery of the Graduate Center, his work is being exhibited at the Fondation Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol in Paris from June 19 through September 29.

The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York (CUNY). An internationally recognized center for advanced studies and a national model for public doctoral education, the school offers more than thirty doctoral programs, as well as a number of master ’s programs. Many of its faculty members are among the world’s leading scholars in their respective fields, and its alumni hold major positions in industry and government, as well as in academia. The Graduate Center is also home to twenty-eight interdisciplinary research centers and institutes focused on areas of compelling social, civic, cultural, and scientific concerns.  Located in a landmark Fifth Avenue building, the Graduate Center has become a vital part of New York City’s intellectual and cultural life with its extensive array of public lectures, exhibitions, concerts, and theatrical events.  Further information on the Graduate Center and its programs can be found at www.gc.cuny.edu.