Agnes was a

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

photography Photography is the visual art, art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It i ...

gallery from 1993 to 2001. Shawn Boley,

Jon Coffelt Johnny Lee Coffelt born (May 16, 1963) is an American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn New York City. Coffelt paints, sculpts, sews, makes Artist's books, book arts, and curates art exhibitions. Background Coffelt was born to Dorcas Ann (ma ...

and Jan Hughes opened the gallery with the mission of attempting to raise awareness of social issues — such as

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bl ...

, AIDS, death and dying, the environment, homelessness,

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ...

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

, classism, imprisonment — through photojournalism, film,

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

, poetry, and book arts. Controversial, Agnes was picketed on several occasions, one of which resulted in a ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virg ...

'' article on December 5, 1994. Agnes worked closely with Video Data Bank in Chicago Illinois for short film/vido screenings which included work by Sadie Benning, Jim Cohen, Ana Mendieta and Susan Share among many others.

Notable exhibits

Melissa Springer Melissa Springer is an American photojournalist whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including ''Aperture'', ''Elle'', ''Forbes'', ''Harper's Bazaar'', ''The New York Times Magazine'', ''Los Angeles Times Magazine'', ''Southern Living ...

's ''"Julia Tutwiler Prison Series"'' was Agnes' first exhibit. After eight years and 77 exhibitions the gallery closed in 2001. Alexandre Glyadelov's ''"Homeless in Bosnia"'' with Médecins sans Frontières was the gallery's last exhibit. *Agnes worked with Visual AIDS striving to increase public awareness of AIDS through the visual arts. Agnes hosted its first " World AIDS Day" in 1992 with " Day Without Art" commemorated annually on the first day of December. *In 1995 and again in 1997 Agnes gave solo exhibitions to

Volker Seding Volker may refer to: * Volker (name), including a list of people with the given name or surname * Volker, Kansas City, a historic neighborhood in Kansas City * Volker Boulevard, Kansas City * ''Alien Nations'' (German: ''Die Völker''), a real-time ...

. Seding was primarily known for his 40 years of photographing zoos around the world and for gradually changing the thought patterns of environmental designers who govern zoo design. * In 1998, Janice Kluge was part of the three person exhibition, "White Light." *''"UpSouth"'' partially funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts was curated and organized by

Anne Arrasmith Anne Harper Arrasmith (February 20, 1946 – February 1, 2017) was an American artist and curator who lived and worked in Birmingham, Alabama. She co-founded and operated along with Peter Prinz the not-for-profit project ''Space One Eleven.'' Ar ...

and traveled to several venues across Birmingham, AL in one day, including Space One Eleven,

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is a large interpretive museum and research center in Birmingham, Alabama that depicts the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The Institute is located in the Civil Rights District, whic ...

, the Visual Arts Gallery of University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Agnes. It showed the work of artists Emma Amos and Willie Birch and writer bell hooks, as well as Ann Benton, Priscilla Hancock Cooper,

Karen Graffeo Karen Graffeo is an American artist based in Birmingham, Alabama. While specializing in photography, Graffeo is also a choreographer and installation artist. Early in her photography career, she worked as Jerry Uelsmann's assistant and model. ...

, Janice Kluge,

Lee Isaacs Lee Isaacs is an American photographer, living and working in Birmingham, Alabama. Isaacs studied pinhole photography with Pinky Bass. He has worked both with commercial and art photography. He works with photography seminars and teaches classe ...

Mary Ann Sampson Mary Ann Sampson is an American artist living and working in Ragland, Alabama. Sampson is a Artist's books, book artist, specializing in Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniatures and Street literature, broadsides most of which are ''unique'' ...

, Jess Marie Walker and

Marie Weaver Marie Weaver is an American artist who specializes in ceramic sculpture, printmaking, book arts, and graphic design. Weaver earned a B. A. from the University of Vermont and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University. Weaver lives and ...

.''UpSouth''
at Agnes

Artists

Agnes artists list included:

Sara Garden Armstrong Sara Garden Armstrong is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. Armstrong creates sculptures, paintings, drawings (from miniature to wall size), artist's books, multimedia artworks involving computers sound and light, and con ...

Pinky Bass Marion M. Bass, known as Pinky Bass or Pinky/MM Bass, is an American photographer, known for her work in pinhole photography. Bass, a resident of Fairhope, Alabama, has exhibited at a number of museums including the Asheville Art Museum, Bir ...

, Sadie Benning, Ruth Bernhard, Kevin Bubriski, Dan Budnik,

Clayton Colvin Clayton Colvin (born 1976) is an American abstract painter, multimedia artist, collagist, and curator of contemporary art who lives and works in Birmingham, Alabama. Education Colvin received a BA in Art History from New York University in 1999 a ...

Paul Caponigro Paul Caponigro (born December 7, 1932), is an American photographer from Boston, Massachusetts. Early life Caponigro started having interests in photography at age 13. However, he also had a strong passion in music and began to study music at ...

Timothy Ely Timothy C. Ely (born February 9, 1949) is a contemporary American painter, graphic artist, and bookbinder, known for creating single-copy handmade books as art objects. Ely was born in Snohomish, Washington in 1949. Following graduate school (U ...

, William Greiner, James Herbert, Jenny Holzer, Davi Det Hompson,

, Janice Kluge, O. Winston Link,

Spider Martin James "Spider" Martin (April 1, 1939 – April 8, 2003) was an American photographer known for his work documenting the American Civil Rights Movement in 1965, specifically Bloody Sunday and other incidents from the Selma to Montgomery marche ...

Julie Moos Julie Moos (born 1966) is a Canadian photographer and art writer. Moos' work was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and curated by Lawrence Rinder. Moos's work has been shown at the Birmingha ...

, Hermann Nitsch, Ed Ruscha,

, Maggie Taylor, Arthur Tress, Thomas Tulis,

Jerry Uelsmann Jerry Norman Uelsmann (June 11, 1934 – April 4, 2022) was an American photographer. As an emerging artist in the 1960s, Jerry Uelsmann received international recognition for surreal, enigmatic photographs (photomontages) made with his uniqu ...

and Randy West (photographer).

Sources

* ''UpSouth'' by bell hooks, Emma Amos and Antoinette Spanos Nordan, University Press, University of Alabama, Birmingham, 1999, pp 70–73

References

External links

Visual AIDS

Day Without Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agnes (Gallery) 1993 establishments in Alabama 2001 disestablishments in Alabama Photography museums and galleries in the United States Art museums and galleries in Alabama Art galleries established in 1993 Art galleries disestablished in 2001