Filter Photo is pleased to announce, Back on the Shelf, a photo book exhibition, juried by artist and co-founder of SKYLARK Editions, Paul D’Amato.

“The photo book has been inseparable from the evolution of photography itself.  Since the invention of the camera, books on photography have accompanied every technical, stylistic, and conceptual iteration of the medium. We can trace this from Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature in 1844, to the latest addition to Photo-Eye Books or, for that matter, to the books on display here at Filter Space. The book is both a celebration of photography’s reproducibility and a refutation of the preciousness of one of kind objects. And, just as photography is the most democratic of all art forms, the book is the perfect vehicle for making photography available to as many people as possible.

We all own books and they’re all different. The way a book functions, including its binding and structure, can vary as widely as the kind of work contained within it. This show is a celebration of all that. Each book here, in its own way, has a conceptual integrity that is clear from the title to the binding, paper, image quality and text, to the final end-sheet. The result, on display in this exhibition, is a testament to how varied and alive the visual book still is in the face of all things digital and remote.”

—Paul D’Amato

Featured Artists: Garth & Pierre Amundson-Gour, Sandra Bacchi, Sophie Barbasch, Barbara Ciurej & Lindsay Lochman, Troy Colby, Hellen Colman, Pamela Connolly, Shannon Davis, Sarah Eckstine, Dana Fritz, Henry Horenstein, Joseph Hud, Evan Hume, Dia Jade, Daniel Kariko, Victor Kataev, Erinn Kathryn, Sadie Lookabaugh, Holly Lynton, Sara Macel, Alessandro Mallamaci, Stacy Mehrfar, Laila Nahar, Bob Newman, David Obermeyer, Brian O’Neill, Jordan Putt, David Ricci, Heather Evans Smith, Kira Trinh, Jeffrey Wolin, Torrance York

Paul D’Amato (American, 1956- ) was born in Boston where he attended Boston Latin School at the height of racial unrest, civil rights, and bussing. He moved to Oregon to attend Reed College and claims to have learned as much from traveling cross-country four times a year—often by hitch-hiking and hopping freight trains—as he did in class. After receiving an MFA from Yale School of Art, he moved to Chicago where he discovered the communities of Pilsen and Little Village. The pictures and writing D’Amato produced there over the next fourteen years were made into the book, Barrio.

His most recent book of images made in the African-American community on the west side, entitled Here/Still/Now, was awarded the Lucie Foundation Book Prize in 2018. He has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Grant, and a Rockefeller Foundation Grant to Bellagio, Italy and his work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Art Institute of Chicago among many others.

In 2016, D’Amato co-founded SKYLARK EDITIONS and has been the co-editor and publisher of an eclectic range of photography books. SKYLARK EDITIONS is a non-profit publishing project that provides a platform for the creation and distribution of innovative photo books by emerging and established artists.

This exhibition is partially sponsored by The Illinois Arts Council Agency.

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Exhibition Dates: February 3rd – March 31st, 2023
Gallery Reception: February 3rd, 6 – 9 PM
Location: Filter Space | 1821 W Hubbard St, Suite 207
Gallery Hours: Monday – Saturday, 11 AM – 5 PM

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Tags: Alessandro Mallamaci, Back on the Shelf, Barbara Ciurej & Lindsay Lochman, Bob Newman, Brian O'Neill, Chicago, Dana Fritz, Daniel Kariko, David Obermeyer, David Ricci, Dia Jade, Erinn Kathryn, Evan Hume, Filter Photo, Garth & Pierre Amundson-Gour, Heather Evans Smith, Hellen Colman, Henry Horenstein, Holly Lynton, Jeffrey Wolin, Jordan Putt, Joseph Hud, Kira Trinh, Laila Nahar, Pamela Connolly, Sadie Lookabaugh, Sandra Bacchi, Sara Macel, Sarah Eckstine, Shannon Davis, Sophie Barbasch, Stacy Mehrfar, Torrance York, Troy Colby, Victor Kataev, West Town