J. John Priola is a San Francisco-based contemporary visual artist and educator.Chun, Kimberly "John Priola: Photo series explores 'Philanthropy,'" ''San Francisco Chronicle'', November 24, 2011. Retrieved April 28, 2023.Van Proyen, Mark "J. John Priola @ Anglim/Trimble," ''SquareCylinder'', January 17, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2023. He is known for photographic series capturing humble, generally inanimate subjects that explore human presence, absence and loss through visual metaphor.Bonetti, David "Artists who transcend Pop," ''San Francisco Examiner'', June 12, 2000. Retrieved May 1, 2023.Baker, Kenneth "Priola Elegies at Fraenkel," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', June 3, 2008. Retrieved May 1, 2023.Zimmer, William ''The New York Times'', October 22, 1995. Retrieved May 1, 2023.Bridgwater, Keri "'Natural Light' Is the Captivating New Monograph by Contemporary Visual Artist J. John Priola," ''Inside Hook'', November 8, 2022. Retrieved May 1, 2023. Priola's mature work can be broadly divided into earlier black-and-white, gelatin-silver series—formal elegant, painterly works largely focused on everyday objects and architectural details elevated to portraitsSolnit, Rebecca. "The Color of Shadows, the Weight of Breath, the Sound of Dust," i ''Once Removed'' Arena Editions, 1998. Retrieved May 1, 2023.Bonetti, David Review ''San Francisco Examiner'', April 4, 1997. Retrieved May 1, 2023.Artner, Alan G. "J. John Priola's refined world," ''Chicago Tribune'', January 17, 2003.—and later color series, which gradually shifted from architectural settings to detailed, varied explorations of the often-conflicted human relationship to nature.Bullwinkel, Rita. "The Revolt of Plants In the Age of the Anthropocene," i ''Natural Light: John Priola'' Kehrer Verlag, 2022. Retrieved May 1, 2023. ''San Francisco Chronicle'' critic Kenneth Baker situated Priola's images "on the border between documentary and conceptual art," where they function as surveys of under-noticed details that "remind us how many potential questions, how much intimate domestic history, may lie embedded on the margins of our attention."Baker, Kenneth "Local Treasures: Bay Area Photography," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', January 9, 2015. Retrieved May 1, 2023.Baker, Kenneth "Priola and Masullo at Anglim," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', September 20, 2008. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
Priola's work belongs to the public art collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,Metropolitan Museum of Art Dish Towel, J. John Priola Collection. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...
,Philadelphia Museum of Art Scrap Book, J. John Priola Collection. Retrieved May 1, 2023. among others. He has exhibited at museums including the
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director from ...
Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Bologna
The Galleria d'Arte Moderna of Bologna is the modern art museum of the city. It has five exhibition venues: MAMbo, the Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna; the Villa delle Rose; the ; Casa Morandi; and the . The collections consist of more than 3 ...
,Photography Now J. John Priola Artists. Retrieved May 1, 2023.Art in Embassies, US Department of State J. John Priola Artists. Retrieved May 1, 2023.Artadia J. John Priola, Artadia Awardee Artists. Retrieved May 1, 2023. and at Gallery Paule Anglim, now Anglim/Trimble Gallery, in San Francisco.Baker, Kenneth "Outside the window, a watcher in the dark," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', May 31, 2003. Retrieved May 1, 2023.Blue, Max ''San Francisco Examiner'', January 6, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2023. Priola has published two books, ''Once Removed'' (1998) and ''Natural Light'' (2022).Helfand, Glen. "Rescue Mission," ''Bay Area Reporter'', April 23, 1998, p. 40–41.
Metropolitan State College
Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver or Metro State) is a public university in Denver, Colorado. MSU Denver is located on the Auraria Campus, along with the University of Colorado Denver and the Community College of Denver, in do ...
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...
(MFA, 1987).
Between 1988 and 1993, Priola gained recognition for exhibitions at venues including
SF Camerawork
SF Camerawork is a non-profit art gallery in San Francisco, California dedicated to new ideas and directions in photography.
History
SF Camerawork was founded in 1974 by John Lamkin and a group of artists, initially calling it "Lamkin Camerawor ...
,Bonetti, David. "Alternative transformations," ''San Francisco Examiner'', August 9, 1991, p. D2.Intersection for the ArtsBoutilier, Nancy "Getting to the Heart of the Matter," ''Bay Area Reporter'', February 7, 1991. and
New Langton Arts
New Langton Arts (active 1975 – 2009) was a not-for-profit arts organization focusing on contemporary art founded in 1975 and located the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco, California. Part of the first wave of alternative art spaces ...
,Bonetti, David. "Leaving the 'white cube,'" ''San Francisco Examiner'', November 20, 1992, p. D2. of '' tableaux vivants'', mixed-media installations and photographic series that explored sexual identity, gender and Jungian concepts of the psyche through lenses such as Renaissance masterworks, religion and domestic roles.Shaw, David. "Environments," ''San Francisco Bay Guardian'', April 13, 1988.Helfand, Glen. "Severed Heads, Slavery and Exposed Flesh," ''The City'', February 1991, p. 21–22.Bonetti, David. "A look at self-definition," ''San Francisco Examiner'', June 25, 1993, p. C9–10. His ''tableaux vivants'' portrayed baroque, operatic scenes—often featuring himself playing various roles, male and female, along with artist friends—that critic Glen Helfand described as "visceral, slightly deranged and frankly homoerotic motifs" appropriated from paintings by Titian,
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...
and others.Kapitanoff, Nancy "Display's Small Photos Demand a Closer Look," ''Los Angeles Times'', January 3, 1993. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
Priola's installations consisted of extravagant, moody environments that functioned like theatrical extensions of the images, which he often concealed with draperies, instilling a voyeuristic element. He gradually turned to more claustrophobic or chapel-like installations that shifted thematically from gender to religious intolerance and oppression, the
AIDS epidemic
The global epidemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of 2021, HIV/AI ...
and bodily experience.
Black-and-white photographic series (1993–2008)
Writers have situated Priola's black-and-white work among a generation of post-
deconstruction
The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences w ...
photographers that sought to re-establish faith in the medium's "essential connectedness to its subject," identifying an uncanny, evocative quality that renders recognizable objects enigmatic and open to emotions and narratives—cinematic, therapeutic, evidential—that viewers fabricate for them.Solnit, Rebecca. "San Francisco Fax," ''Art Issues'', September-October 1994.Kandel, Susan "'U-Pic-It': Focus on Photography's Status," ''Los Angeles Times'', May 26, 1994. Retrieved April 28, 2023.Bonetti, David "The truth isn't black or white," ''San Francisco Examiner'', April 21, 1995. Retrieved May 1, 2023. ''San Francisco Examiner'' critic
David Bonetti
David Bonetti (c. 1947 – April 4, 2018) was an American art critic.
Early life
David Bonetti was born circa 1947 and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was Italian and his mother Irish. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1969.
...
wrote, "Priola is an elegiac poet of the camera, and his pictures explore feelings of nostalgia, emptiness, absence, loss and melancholy … Spurs to memory isstill life/portraits become touching ''
memento mori
''Memento mori'' (Latin for 'remember that you ave todie'Bonetti, David "Picturing changes," ''San Francisco Examiner'', December 16, 1998. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
Priola's "Paradise" (1993–94) and "Saved" (1995–97) series consisted of small photographs (the former group in a round format) of everyday objects and odd personal mementos—jewel box, old notebook, fragment of lace, broken plastic horse—isolated against depthless black space. ''Los Angeles Times'' critic
Susan Kandel
Susan Kandel is an American author of a series of mystery books set in Los Angeles featuring sleuth CeCe Caruso, a vintage clothing fashionista and biographer of mystery writers.
Kandel's background is in art history
Art history is the study ...
observed "they function as allegories of the photographic project itself… Ordinary things are rendered extraordinary in and through the processes of representation … Meaning is conceived as an after-effect, a residue of form." Reviews characterized "Saved" images (e.g., ''Dish Towel'', 1995) as haunting, somber and commemorative: "exceedingly humble object(s) … transformed by the artist into a thing of wonder and nobility" with wounds and usage matter-of-factly on display.Baker, Kenneth "Goldin's Friends on View / Self-involved photos at Fraenkel," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', March 15, 1997. Retrieved May 1, 2023.Archer, Nicole " Beyond Repair: Styles of Mending, Cultures of Wounding," ''SFAQ/NYAQ/AQ'', January 17, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
In subsequent series, Priola turned to architectural details, neglected grave sites and outdoor scenes.Prajakti, Jayavant "J. John Priola," ''Stretcher'', 2005. Retrieved May 1, 2023. Critics described his architectural works as "elegies" focused on human traces and symbols or isolated ciphers (recalling similar subjects by Walker Evans and Lee Friedlander). The largely white, austere "White Wall" (1997–99) works depicted patches of wall betraying time, use, or neglect, such as a faintly discolored oval beneath a nail where a mirror once blocked the wall from being bleached by the sun (''Nail'', 1997); the nourish "Numbers" series (2000) presented illuminated door numbers eerily isolated against dark, nondescript slabs of wall.Helfand, Glen. "J. John Priola," ''San Francisco Bay Guardian'', June 7, 2000.
Priola took a similarly abstract, formal approach to three subsequent series. The "Dwell" (2001–02) images looked from deep blackness out or into centered residential windows illuminated by muffled outside or interior light. Dating 2005–08, "Foundation Vents" and "Weep Holes" (holes in retaining walls to permit drainage) captured easy-to-miss functional elements, raising them in Kenneth Baker's words, to "tiny architectural epiphanies, in a plainspoken manner" that quietly revived "the romance" of the photograph as index.
Color photographic series (2009– )
The first of Priola's color projects, "Philanthropy” (2010–11) extended his architectural interests to objects set outside dwellings—specifically bags, boxes, mystery objects and bits of furniture that people bundled and left for pickup as charitable donations. The seventy-five digital color images of deliberately and loosely arranged items function as both still lifes—tied to the diverse homes they sat in front of—and curious portraits of the donors. In the "Nurture" series (2014), Priola continued to explore overlooked aspects of domestic architecture, capturing often-uneasy marriages of modest homes and outdoor vegetation, trouble spots—of overgrowth or stark survival, neglect or ambiguous intention—where flora and human intention collide.
Priola’s “Natural Light" project encompassed exhibitions at Anglim/Trimble (in 2019 and 2023) and his second book, which gathered twelve series spanning over twenty years. Collectively, the various series explore dichotomies of nature and nurture, natural and unnatural, survival and destruction through highly detailed, often dense images of wild or symbiotic (e.g., ''Parasite'', 2017), domestic, dead and synthetic plants. Like Priola's past work, they functioned metaphorically as vehicles to deeper meaning: borrowed houseplants against inky black backgrounds serving as portraits of their owners; surreal foliage arrangements framing central deep black voids to suggest loss; subtly anthropomorphic, ikebana-like compositions of synthetic flowers.Daigle, Claire. "Sumac, Persimmon, Alder, Bay," i ''Natural Light: John Priola'' Kehrer Verlag, 2022. Retrieved May 1, 2023. Comparing these works to images of bare grey pine tree trunks illuminated against black, Mark Van Proyen wrote, “therein lies the underlying drama of Priola’s new photographs: They reveal the sharp and subtle juxtaposition of dormant and living forms, echoing the split history of photography understood as one of technically codified verisimilitude and another of elegiac evocation."
Recognition
Priola's work belongs to the public art collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive,Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive J. John Priola Artists. Retrieved April 28, 2023.Denver Art Museum,Denver Art Museum "Crystal Ball," Objects. Retrieved May 1, 2023. George Eastman Museum,George Eastman Museum J. John Priola People. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
Honolulu Museum of Contemporary Art
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island of ...
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...
, Museum of Photographic Arts (San Diego), Oakland Museum of California, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He has received awards and commissions from the
Aaron Siskind
Aaron Siskind (December 4, 1903 – February 8, 1991) was an American photographer whose work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. He was closely involved with, if ...
Foundation,
Artadia Artadia is an American arts non-profit organization founded in 1999. They are headquartered in New York City, and support visual artists with unrestricted, merit-based financial awards as well as other opportunities.
History
Artadia was founded i ...
Fraenkel Gallery
Fraenkel Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in San Francisco founded by Jeffrey Fraenkel in 1979. Frish Brandt, president of the gallery, joined in 1985.
Fraenkel Gallery has presented more than 350 exhibitions, with a focus on photography and ...
(San Francisco), Schneider Gallery (Chicago), Joseph Bellows Gallery (La Jolla, CA), Weston Gallery (Carmel, CA), and Marc Foxx Gallery (Los Angeles).Pincus, Robert L. Review, ''San Diego Union-Tribune'', April 5, 2007.
Hartford Art School
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
International Limited-Residency master programs and at California College of the Arts, San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI).University of Hartford International Limited-Residency MFA Photography Faculty. Retrieved May 1, 2023. He was at SFAI from 1996 until its closing in 2022, including service as chair of the photography department and director of the Low Residency MAF Fine Arts Program.