Community: The Photography of Milton Rogovin

Resource:Art (R:A) is thrilled to announce their representation of the estate of Milton Rogovin (1909-2011) here in Western New York. Rogovin is internationally respected as one of America’s finest social documentary photographers. His work is often compared to the twentieth-century photography of Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis. Rogovin traveled the world documenting the everyday lives of people he referred to as, “The Forgotten Ones”: working class residents of Buffalo, Chileans (a collaboration with poet Pablo Neruda), miners, steelworkers, citizens of Appalachia, Native Americans, and members of Buffalo’s Yemeni population, among others.

Resource:Art has organized a cross-city mural project and exhibition of Rogovin’s work titled Community. R:A has commissioned Max Collins to appropriate imagery sourced from Rogovin's photographs in two wheat pasted murals to be installed in the city of Buffalo. Beginning on April 24th, Collins will be wheatpasting select images in two separate locations. The east side mural will be placed on the building facade of the makerspace The Foundry (http://www.thefoundrybuffalo.org/). For the west side location, R:A has chosen a large wooden fence which houses a community-centric lot run by PUSH Buffalo (http://pushbuffalo.org/) at 460 Massachusetts Avenue. These murals are intended to showcase Rogovin’s powerful imagery and the history of our city. The murals celebrate our culturally rich city, and represent a continued effort to unify Buffalo and the organizations working to protect the community through art making and placement.

In conjunction with the unveiling of these murals, Resource:Art will host an exhibition of Rogovin’s fine art photography at the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology (BCAT) located at 1221 Main Street in Buffalo. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these works will go to fund BCAT’s mission: career training for unemployed or underemployed adults to gain family sustaining wages and the after school arts program for at risk teens to support their path to high school graduation. Michael Mulley, a well known photographer and gallerist, will teach a class about Rogovin’s process and a selection of the students’ own photos will be exhibited alongside Rogovin’s in the exhibition. Teens in this program will also assist Max Collins in the creation and application of the wheat pasted murals. Collins will spend the last two weeks in April applying the murals in time for a weekend long celebration beginning May 4th, 2017.

Community opens with a ticketed VIP preview party on Thursday night, May 4th from 5:30 - 7:30 pm. Milton Rovogin’s son Mark Rogovin will give a talk about his father’s work at 6:30 pm. Tickets are $75 and all proceeds from ticket sales will go to fund BCAT. The event will feature light hors d'oeuvres and drinks from local purveyors including The Billy Club and Nickel City Cheese & Mercantile and is co-chaired by Dr. Thomas and Mrs. Susanna Schenk. Sponsors of this unique event include BlueCross Blueshield of WNY, ECMC and Kaleida Health.

The exhibition at 1221 Main Street will open to the public with a free reception from 6 - 9 pm on Friday, May 5th as part of Allentown’s First Friday Gallery Walk.

A press conference and mural unveiling will be held at 10am on Saturday May 6th, in front of the mural on the facade of The Foundry located at 298 Northhampton Street.

Community opens on the heels of R:A’s first exhibition series Eminent, which included three solo exhibitions at three separate locations of work by Joseph Piccillo, Adele Cohen and Jackie Felix. Community continues the mission of ensuring the legacy of Buffalo’s most important artists. R:A is an art consultancy group founded by Anna Kaplan, Elisabeth Samuels and Emily Tucker to promote WNY artists and place their work in public, corporate and private collections.