Amaranth

23 April - 15 May 2009

curated by Michelle Bogre

Maramotti Collection in collaboration with Max Mara and
Parsons The New School for Design, New York


Photography may be realistic, pictorial, conceptual, constructed and deconstructed: all this is represented in the exhibits - a sort of “short history of photography”. One element however remains unchanged and present in all the works on display: the relation of photography with time, photography as a medium which exists in the past, present and future all at once. Like amaranth, the flower that according to legend never fades, the images of thirty students chosen for the exhibition open to the exploration of photography as an element interrupting the time dimension which marks our life with its experiences, expanding and enriching it.

The exhibits of thirty graduates, chosen by curator Michelle Bogre as the homage paid to the theme of eternity, the fil rouge of Fotografia Europea 2009, shine eternally with prescience, steadfastly insist on tradition, expand the boundaries of the medium, playfully poke fun at photo theory, create order from chaos, obscure the clear and clarify the obscure. All are part of the collection that has grown during the span of fourteen years of original and unique partnership between Max Mara and the esteemed photography program of the Parsons The New School for Design of New York.
Throughout the years, Max Mara has in fact selected the works of students to be exhibited in Max Mara flagship store on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, which were later acquired for the collection. Appropriately titled New Visions, the project is a testimony of the company's strong commitment for art and education. Being chosen for this exhibition is for the Parsons' graduates a transformative experience because it has given them a priceless validation and confidence in their art at a key time in their artistic development.


Photos by:
Nathan Ian Anderson/Lee Balzano/Robin Blauschild/Frick Byers/Stephan Crasneanscki/Izabella Demavlys/Sherry Griffin/Lyndsey Hawkins/Aaron Hillebrand/Darwisa Kagalingan/Kevin Kwan/Hannah Ljungh/Brian McCarty/Gabriel Mendes/Jared Moossy/Chris Nesbit/Nectarious Papanicolaou/Rebecca Phillips/Mary Presley Adams/Georgina Richardson/Tasha Roth/George Saitas/Sarah Smith/Judith Stephens/Sarah Sudhoff/Eva Suler de Pellegrin/Kayla Wiener/Sarah Wilmer/Amy Wilson


Michelle Bogre is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Photography at Parsons The New School for Design. She is documentary photographer and freelance writer. Her photographs and articles have been published in many popular magazines such as American Photo, Popular Photography, Time, Newsweek, Paris Match, and she has been contibuting editor for many books, among which The Design Dictionary (Birkhauser Press, 2008). She curated some exhibitions in the United States, such as Fantasy, New York at the Hermés Gallery and Moments of Clarity at Sotheby’s New York. She is a member of the Society for Photographic Education.