• 
  1/12
  Aberration, Bruce Hall
  (Photograph)
• 
  2/12
  A Close Up View, Evgen Bavcar
  (Photograph)
• 
  3/12
  Shade Tunnel and Tractor, Rosita McKenzie
  (Photograph)
• 
  4/12
  Reaching Emotional Equilibrium Between the Invisible
  and the Tangible, Gerardo Nigenda
  (Photograph with braille lettering)
• 
  5/12
  DoubleTake, Michael Richard
  (Photograph)
• 
  6/12
  Eiffel Tower, Annie Hesse
  (Photograph)
• 
  7/12
  Electroman, Pete Eckert
  (Photograph)
• 
  8/12
  Key Bra, Henry Butler
  (Photograph)
• 
  9/12
  Do You See the Big E?, Kurt Weston
  (Photograph)
• 
  10/12
  Self Portrait at San Trovaso, Venice, Italy, Alice Wingwall
  (Photograph)
• 
  10/12
  Portrait in Paper, Mark Andres and Sonia Soberats
  (Photograph)
• 
  10/12
  Untitled 6, Ralph Baker
  (PHOTOGRAPH)

Curated by Douglas McCulloh

Sight Unseen, the first major exhibition of work by the world’s most accomplished blind photographers, explores the idea that blind photographers can see in ways that sighted people cannot.

Many of us, with sight leading as our dominant sense, use images to build our world. Visual information is practical to our survival and yet it has become pervasive in our world. We respond to visual overload by shuttering and narrowing our perception, a form of self-inflicted blindness, so as to rebalance our senses. But for the sight-impaired artists in this exhibition, the act of making a photograph has provided new ways of seeing.

These artists employ diverse strategies in their work. Some use the camera to present their own inner visions. Some capture the outside world unfiltered with a non-retinal photography of chance. And a number of the artists, legally blind but retaining a limited, highly attenuated sight, photograph to capture the outside world and bring it into their realm.

In his novel Blindness, José Saramago writes, "Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are." Beethoven composed music without the ability to hear, blind Milton and Homer conjured the landscapes of the heavens and the underworld, and the artists of Sight Unseen further explore our definitions of blindness and challenge us to reevaluate what it means to see.

Sight Unseen: International Photography by Blind Artists is curated by Douglas McCulloh and was originated by UCR/California Museum of Photography, an affiliate institution of ARTSblock, the University of California, Riverside, and toured by Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions, Pasadena, California.

ARTISTS:
Ralph Baker, New York, New York
Evgen Bavcar, Paris, France
Henry Butler, New Orleans, Louisiana
Pete Eckert, Sacramento, California
Bruce Hall, Irvine, California
Annie Hesse, Paris, France
Rosita McKenzie, Edinburgh, Scotland
Gerardo Nigenda, Oaxaca, México
Michael Richard, Los Angeles, California
Seeing With Photography Collective, New York, New York
Kurt Weston, Huntington Beach, California
Alice Wingwall, Berkeley, California

View Marketing Booklet (PDF)

Number of Works: 111 photographs, 8 tactile illustrations

Frame Sizes: 8 x 10 inches (20 x 25 cm) to 48 x 57 inches (121 x 144 cm)

Space Requirements: 420 linear feet (130 linear meters)

Tour Dates: Fall 2009 – 2013

Participation Fee: Medium ($10,000 – $20,000)

Support Materials: Publication, exhibition catalogue

REVIEWS AND NEWS

DenverArts.org, Rupert Jenkins, March, 2011
Month of Photography (release), February 17, 2011
ЗДЕСЬ (Moscow News Program), December 2, 2010
Flavorwire.com, Paul Laster, November 18, 2010
HBO documentary "Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers" premiering November 17, 2010
Men's Journal, Jordan Reed, November 16, 2010
Los Angeles Times "Culture Monster", Christopher Knight, June 16, 2009
Orange County Registrar, Richard Chang, June 7th, 2009
NBC, Olsen Ebright, May 31, 2009
KPCC (NPR Affiliate), Steven Cuevas, May 28, 2009
ArtSlant, Stacey Davies, May 25, 2009
BBC TV Worldwide, May 24, 2009
Time Magazine, Matt Kettmann, May 17, 2009