Kris Graves Photo Exhibition | Photo by Brett Hull | The Wright State Guardian
Photographer Kris Graves’ Truth & Ruin exhibition is on display in the Stein Galleries from Oct. 18 to Dec. 3.
Using portrait and landscape photography, Graves’ photos encourage viewers to think about issues like racism.
Truth & Ruin exhibition
Named after his upcoming book, the exhibition displays photos Graves selected from four of his projects.
These projects are The Testament Project, Privileged Mediocrity, Latency and Southern Horror.
The Testament Project explores and reconceptualizes the contemporary black experience in America. Each subject was able to choose colored lighting for their photograph.
“By including subjects in the creation of the scene and the altering of color, I seek to create photographs that portray individuality in addition to their blackness,” Graves said on his website.
Subjects were photographed with blue, purple, pink, orange and green.
“I think each person has their own aura, and they chose the colors according to how they want to be seen and I think that’s really cool,” communications student Mae Willis said.
In Privileged Mediocrity, his photos capture contemporary issues by looking at American landscapes and the people stuck in that landscape.
Graves’ photos for Latency were taken during the 2020 George Floyd protests where people were spray painting the statues. The series is about Confederate monuments in Richmond, Virginia coming down.
The final series chosen for Truth & Ruin were photos from Southern Horror. These are black and white photos of Confederate monuments in the south to give an idea of how many still exist today.
With his Truth & Ruin exhibition, Graves hopes to encourage viewers to reflect on the issues his photos portray, including police brutality and the continued existence of racist monuments.
“I definitely make the work so that people can experience it and figure out where they stand in this history of America. I leave it up to the people, I leave it up to the viewers to make their own assumptions about what they're seeing. I believe that I'm giving you what's happening in real life, stepping back from that in the photograph so that you can make your own decisions,” Graves said.
Collaboration with Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center
Wright State University (WSU) associate professor and exhibition curator, Benjamin Montague, also wanted the exhibition to impact people.
Montague invited Graves to display his work at WSU, inspired by the protests of summer 2020. His goal is for viewers to see the issues through somebody else’s lens, such as the Southern Horror series.
“What I find so powerful about this is a lot of these monuments, a lot of these school names, I probably wouldn’t notice them. They're things that you might see but the grid is so big it shows how ubiquitous these monuments and images are. And that the false narrative that these sites are trying to create through the reinterpretation of history, and the power that has the messaging that has and how so many people don't even notice that kind of stuff,” Montague said.
Montague wanted to share Graves’ work but also go beyond the photos on the wall by creating discussion within the community.
He decided to partner with Quatez Scott, Intercultural Specialist, Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center. Now the Stein Galleries, in collaboration with the Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center, will host a closing reception. Alex Zamalin will talk on “Black Political Thought and Antiracism: The Civic Radical Tradition” on Dec. 2.
Students can view the exhibition from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays or from noon to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays. On Saturdays, the gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Those interested in Kris Graves photography can also visit his website.
