Sheehan contributes to Disfarmer exhibition

Associate Professor of Art Tanya Sheehan contributed to the catalogue of a major exhibition of vintage photographs made by Mike Disfarmer between 1914 and 1950 in Heber Springs, Arkansas. Becoming Disfarmer opens at the Neuberger Museum of Art, SUNY Purchase, on Sunday, November 9, 2014. At the opening Sheehan will join curator Chelsea Spengemann, Executive Director of the Disfarmer Project Hava Gurevich, and conservator of Disfarmer’s negatives Peter Miller in a public conversation about how Disfarmer’s commercial studio photographs were revalued and recast as art twice, in 1974 and again in 2004. Their conversation will complicate the meaning of Disfarmer’s portraits and locate them as objects from the past with resonance in a present, critical moment of thinking about photography. Becoming Disfarmer will remain on view at the Neuberger Museum until March 22, 2015.