Leon Borensztein and His Friends

SAN FRANCISCO—December 15, 2004— Yerba Buena Center for the Arts presents Leon Borensztein and His Friends: A Look at Creative Growth Artists and their Work, running January 22 through April 3, 2005. Visual Arts Curator for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, René de Guzman and Tom di Maria, Executive Director for Creative Growth Art Center, join forces to curate this moving and powerful exhibition. In this special show, Leon Borensztein intimately photographs the artists at Creative Growth, in an honest, positive, and sympathetic light. Borensztein’s portraits are paired with the extraordinary artwork from the clients of the Oakland art center. Creative Growth is the world’s oldest and largest independent art center serving adult artists with disabilities.

The collaboration between de Guzman and di Maria depicts the ongoing cooperative relationships between YBCA and other arts organizations, in carrying out its mission to shed light on deserving artists overlooked because of a lack of understanding of these works in the art market. The show is part of the Outsider Art and Street Culture series, one of the center’s “Big Ideas” that guides its programming.

“The value of these kinds of programs is to demonstrate that artistic intelligence, creativity and imagination is shared by a much wider range of people than normally acknowledged,” states de Guzman.

Leon Borensztein’s photographs have appeared in Life, Harper’s Magazine, Vogue International and the New York Times Magazine. Borensztein, whose own daughter is an artist affiliated with Creative Growth, photographed the friends he has made at the center with his daughter over the years. The results are dignified portraits of the artists at Creative Growth, photographs that show them in a matter-of-fact way and not shying away from a direct representation of the personalities involved. It was Borensztein’s desire to pay homage to people with disabilities and dispel common stereotypes about them. He strives to capture even the most severely disabled people in a positive and sympathetic light.

“I don’t believe that the task of an artist is to applaud, flatter, or judge, but rather to question, to provoke, to inflame, and to incite. I am a father, and as a photographer I am drawn to the stronger, more striking images. But, as the father of a ‘special daughter,’ I am attracted to the less dramatic images, the ones that are more dignified, the ones that flatter. At the start, I had transformed them into something that they were not. I had missed the whole point of this project. Therefore, I decided to be positively objective, not hiding their disabilities but not accentuating them either,” Borensztein writes in the introduction to his book, One is Superman, One is Adam (Chronicle Books), which documents this body of work.

Creative Growth Art Center serves over 140 adults with disabilities. For many of these artists, the proceeds from their artwork is their primary means of financial independence. The center provides a safe environment that fosters and nurtures the creative process, while promoting and marketing the art of people with developmental physical, mental and emotional disabilities. The art making is a truly expressive outlet and a means for these artists to find their voice. The resulting work is telling and original.

“It's a great privilege to work with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to showcase the work of Creative Growth artists. During our 30-year history, our artists have found a home in museums and collections around the world, but recognition at home is always the most gratifying. Leon's photography provides a unique and essential look into the lives of these outstanding artists, and fills in the spaces between our response to their work and our interest in their challenges as artists,” states di Maria.

With internationally acclaimed artists such as Judith Scott, who works in fiber art, and Donald Mitchell, a painter known for his labor-intensive crosshatching and repetition techniques, the show includes its share of celebrities, as well as some unknowns. The Creative Growth artists employ a broad spectrum of mediums. Juxtaposed with Borensztein’s beautiful black and white photographs which document these artists, the exhibition tells a complete and inspiring story that we hope will lead to an interest by the public to continue to seek out the works of the Creative Growth artists.

Pressetext

Leon Borensztein and His Friends: A Look at Creative Growth Artists and their Work
YBCA Galleries
Kuratoren: René de Guzman, Tom di Maria