Weisman Art Museum Touring Exhibits

Paul Shambroom
Level A Hazmat suit, yellow ("Disaster City"
National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center,
Texas Engineering and Extension Service [TEEX],
College Station, Texas), 2004
pigmented inkjet on canvas with varnish
Courtesy of the artist

Paul Shambroom: Picturing Power for the first time brings together selections from Shambroom's five most important series to date - Factories (1986-1988), Offices (1989-1990), Nuclear Weapons (1992-2001), Meetings (1999-2003), and Security (2004-current). Together these series look penetratingly at how everyday citizens intersect with, and influence, the dominant institutions of their times.

Factories and Offices, begun in the late 1980s, mark Shambroom's earliest attempts to grapple with powers seemingly beyond our control but integral to our lives. Shambroom visited manufacturing sites-from the most gritty, heavily industrial to the gleaming high tech plants of the computer and biotech businesses-and office spaces-complete with cubicles and board rooms-to capture scenes of the spaces where most Americans spend the majority of their days. Nuclear Weapons, begun in the early 1990's, was motivated by Shambroom's experiences of growing up with the bomb and subsequent fatherhood. Gaining access to long-restricted nuclear sites, Shambroom produced eerie images of slumbering bombs and immaculate, empty war rooms. The series highlights the nuclear threat that still lingers after the Cold War. For Meetings, Shambroom traveled to municipal meetings in small communities as far flung as Bernice, Louisiana, Baltic, South Dakota, and Buckland, Massachusetts. Once there, he photographed public officials in a formal portrait style, calling up both the seriousness and banality of these gatherings. Security turns again to the portrait, but this time to that of the heroic individual. Scenes of security training carried out at the facilities he visits appear like tableaus of danger and disaster. Past and future, reality and fiction, blur as each figure and scene creates a picture of threat and resistance in our post-9/11 age.

While diverse in subject matter, Shambroom's series all record and demystify secret and little-seen loci of power. His images are remarkable both for their stark portrayal of such places and as evidence of his access to the sites. Negotiating this access in an open and democratic manner is a hallmark of Shambroom's practice. Embodying curiosity, persistence, and empathy, Shambroom's work illustrates and champions engaged citizenship and democracy.

Key individuals on this project are: artist Paul Shambroom; Diane Mullin, associate curator, Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota; Helena Reckitt, senior curator of programs at The Power Plant, Toronto; Chris Scoates, director at the University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach; and Dick Hebdige, cultural critic and director at the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The Weisman Art Museum has published the first fully illustrated catalogue to combine work from across Shambroom's career. The catalogue includes color plates of all the images in the exhibition; an annotated plate list; an interview with Shambroom by Stuart Horodner, director of programs at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, and essays by exhibition curators, Chris Scoates, Helena Reckitt, and Diane Mullin, and cultural historian, Dick Hebdige.

Works in the exhibition: Forty-two photographs from five series: Factories, Offices, Nuclear Weapons, Meetings and Security.

Space requirements: This exhibition requires approximately 3,500 square footage of gallery space. The exhibition checklist can be adjusted, with curatorial approval, to fit smaller galleries.

Fee: The participation fee is $12,000 and pro-rated shipping is estimated at $9,000.