Office of Public Relations

Pomona, NJ 08240

 

 

Stockton Art Gallery to Show Pictures From the New World: An African American Village in Israel

 

Professor of Art, Wendel A. White, to Bring the Village of Peace to Stockton

 

For Immediate Release

Friday, September 8, 2006

 

Contact: Tim Kelly

Stockton Public Relations

(609) 652-4950

 

Jessica Hudson

(609) 652-4524

 

GALLOWAY TWP., NJ The exhibition, Pictures from a New World: An African American Village in Israel, includes photographs taken in the African Hebrew Israelite communities of Dimona and Arad Israel. These communities began more than 35 years ago when a group of African Americans emigrated from the Chicago area in 1967. They then lived in Liberia for more than two years, and established this community in Israels Negev Desert. Images in this portfolio describe various aspects of daily life in the community; portraits, business, education, architecture, healthcare, music, and play.

 

The exhibiting artist Wendel A. White, is currently Professor of Art at Stockton. He has received various awards and fellowships including the 1995 New Jersey Council for the Arts Fellowship, the 2003 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Photography, and the 2005 Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts grant to support the Schools for the Colored project. Mr. Whites work has been included in many museums and collections including individual and group exhibitions and publications. In January 2003 the Noyes Museum of Art mounted a retrospective exhibition of the Small Towns, Black Lives project that included 13 years of the images and an exhibition catalogue of the same title. That exhibition will continue to travel to various venues through December 2006.

 

Extensions of Whites earlier works, Small Towns, Black Lives: African American Communities in Southern New Jersey and Schools for the Colored: Up-South, Between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean, these photos address the historical traditions of African American communities. The photographs are a continuing chronicle of the various iterations of the concept of community and identity for African Americans.

 

A panel discussion, Redefining Community and Identity: The African Hebrew Israelite Village, will be held in the Townsend Residential Life Center (TRLC) on Thursday, September 28^th from 3 to 5 pm. The discussion will be followed by a reception in the Stockton Art Gallery in Room H-113 from 5 to 6pm.

 

The Stockton Art Gallerys Fall 2006 Exhibition will be on display from September 18 through October 14.

 

Special Stockton College Art Gallery Hours for this exhibition (Room H-113):

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 11:30am-4pm

Tuesday: 11:30am-8pm

Saturday and Sunday: 12pm-4pm

 

For more information, contact Denise McGarvey at (609) 652-4566 or denise.mcgarvey@stockton.edu.

 

 

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