Speaker Ralph Gibson
Photographer
Leica Medal of Excellence|
John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship
"Finding a Visual Identity in the Digital Age"
#FightsWorthFighting Fight for Photography
Gibson's photographs are included in over 170 museum collections around the world, and have appeared in hundreds of oneman exhibitions. According to ArtDaily: "For Gibson, photography isn't about capturing a special event or a certain moment but about making the most insignificant subject into a work of art".
Biography
Ralph Gibson was born in Hollywood, California in 1939. His father was assistant director to A.Hitchcock and as a young boy he would visit the set during filming. He also worked extra and acted in bit parts. He was impressed by the power of the camera lens and the intensity of the lights. He studied photography while in the US Navy and then at the San Francisco Art Institute. He began his professional career as an assistant to Dorothea Lange and went on to work with Robert Frank on two films. Gibson has maintained a lifelong fascination with books and book-making. Since the appearance in 1970 of THE SOMNAMBULIST, his work has been steadily impelled towards the printed page
To date his work has been published in over 40 monographs. His photographs are included in over one hundred and seventy museum collections around the world, and have appeared in hundreds of oneman exhibitions. He has lectured and led workshops in over 20 countries over the past 40 years. In 2013 he spoke in schools and museums in China, Brazil, Australia and Bali. Gibson's awards include fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Leica Medal of Excellence , the Lucie Lifetime Award and the Silver Plumb Award.
In 2010 he collaborated with Lou Reed on the film RED SHIRLEY which was screened in 14 film festivals throughout Europe and North America. The High Museum of Art held a retrospective of his work entitled “Quartet” in 2012. He has maintained a relationship to the guitar since his earliest teens. Recently Gibson has incorporated his photographs and musical compositions into film and live performances. He has performed TYPOGRAPHY and ONE WAY with the wind instrumentalist Jon Gibson at Roulette and the Stone in New York. Recent performances in 2013 include the Burchfield-Penny Art Center Testify Festival in Buffalo NY and The Central China Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. He is currently at work composing music and video for the Jon Lehrer Dance Company to be presented in the Spring of 2015. In Sept. 2014 the Goeun Museum in Busan, Korea presented a retrospective of his work. He endorsed a limited edition of the Leica Monochrom camera which bears his signature on the top plate. His entire body of work can be seen and heard in depth at www.ralphgibson.com.
He is an Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Maryland and Ohio Wesleyan University. In March of 2015 he received the Lifetime Artist Achievement Award from the Guild Hall Academy of the Arts.
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