Agnes (gallery)
| Company type | Art gallery |
|---|---|
| Industry | Photography, Visual arts |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Founder | Shawn Boley, Jon Coffelt, Jan Hughes |
| Defunct | 2001 |
| Headquarters | Birmingham , United States |
| Products | Photography exhibitions, Film and video screenings, Visual art events |
Agnes was a photography gallery based in Birmingham, Alabama that operated between 1993 and 2001. The gallery was established by Shawn Boley, Jon Coffelt, and Jan Hughes with the mission to highlight pressing social concerns—such as cancer, AIDS, mortality and end-of-life issues, environmental protection, homelessness, ethics, racism, classism, and imprisonment—through mediums including photojournalism, film, video, poetry, and book arts. Due to its provocative programming, Agnes faced several protests, one of which attracted attention from USA Today in 1994.
The gallery worked in partnership with Chicago's Video Data Bank to present short film and video screenings, showcasing works by artists such as Sadie Benning, Jim Cohen, Ana Mendieta, and Susan Share.
Notable exhibits
- The first exhibition hosted by Agnes was Melissa Springer's "Julia Tutwiler Prison Series". After mounting 77 exhibitions over eight years, the gallery closed its doors in 2001. Its concluding show featured Alexandre Glyadelov's "Homeless in Bosnia", presented in collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières.
- In collaboration with Visual AIDS, Agnes sought to raise public consciousness about AIDS through visual art, organizing its inaugural "World AIDS Day" event in 1992 that included "Day Without Art" commemorations.
- Photographer Volker Seding held solo exhibitions at Agnes in both 1995 and 1997; he is recognized for his extensive documentation of zoos and contributions to environmental design.
- In 1998, artist Janice Kluge was featured in the three-person show titled "White Light."
- The exhibition "UpSouth", partly supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, was curated by Anne Arrasmith and toured several venues across Birmingham—including Agnes—within a single day. This show included artists such as Emma Amos, Willie Birch, writer bell hooks, Ann Benton, Priscilla Hancock Cooper, Karen Graffeo, Janice Kluge, Lee Isaacs, Mary Ann Sampson, Jess Marie Walker, and Marie Weaver.
Artists
Agnes represented a diverse group of artists including Sara Garden Armstrong, Pinky Bass, Sadie Benning, Ruth Bernhard, Kevin Bubriski, Dan Budnik, Clayton Colvin, Paul Caponigro, Timothy Ely, Karen Graffeo, William Greiner, James Herbert, Jenny Holzer, Davi Det Hompson, Lee Isaacs, Janice Kluge, O. Winston Link, Spider Martin, Julie Moos, Hermann Nitsch, Ed Ruscha, Mary Ann Sampson, Maggie Taylor, Arthur Tress, Thomas Tulis, Jerry Uelsmann, Marie Weaver and photographer Randy West (photographer).
Sources
- UpSouth by bell hooks, painter Emma Amos and Antoinette Spanos Nordan, University Press of Alabama, Birmingham, 1999, pp. 70–73