Updated Prizes!

We’re just thrilled with your response to the contest so far and have decided to add a little more to the prize pool!

The winner of the contest will now receive prizes including a signed copy of Izu’s Bhutan: The Sacred Within, two front-row seats to Izu’s lecture on September 14, 2008, admission for two to the post-lecture strolling supper, and a DIA Companion Membership!! There will be an additional prize given to the second place photo including a signed copy of Bhutan as well as a DIA Companion Membership.  

Keep up the great work folks!

Kenro Izu@The DIA

Sacred Places, an exhibition of 56 stunning black-and-white platinum prints by Kenro Izu, opened yesterday at the DIA in the newly refurbished Albert and Peggy de Salle Gallery of Photography. Visitors to the museum are falling under the spell of these beautiful photographs often from ancient and remote areas in Asia, the Middle East in addition to views of Stonehenge and Easter Island.

I was fortunate to spend a day at Kenro’s studio in upstate New York earlier this year with Amelia Chau, my DIA colleague and co-curator of Sacred Places. Kenro has been photographing sacred sites throughout the world for over 10 years and published a book this year with recent work he made while traveling through the country of Bhutan, where he photographed in monasteries and villages. To hear the artist speak of his work is always a pleasure and a privilege, and I would encourage readers to attend his lecture (free with museum admission) in the DIA’s Lecture Hall on Sunday, September 14, 2008 at 2PM.

Nancy Barr

Nancy Barr

Hello all! My name is Nancy Barr. I am a Detroit native and have been a specialist in modernist and contemporary photography at the Detroit Institute of Arts for fourteen years as well as a teacher at the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, and the University of Michigan, Dearborn. I first became interested in photography as a teenager and was inspired by the experimental work of Man Ray, fashion work of Guy Bourdin as well as the portraiture of Diane Arbus. Currently, I am organizing several exhibitions for the DIA featuring the work Robert Frank, Ari Marcopoulos and Doug and Mike Starn. In my hours away from the museum, I enjoy spending time with my husband, the artist Glenn Barr and daughter Avalon.

Amelia Chau

Amelia Rivera Court

Hi! My name is Amelia Chau and I am the Assistant Curator of Asian Art at the DIA. I was born in Hong Kong, attended college in California, and hold an MA in the History of Art from the University of California, Riverside. My master’s thesis examined 20^th century Chinese paintings in the context of traditional Chinese and modern European painting theories. Since 1996, I have worked on many installations of Asian art at the DIA.

I am interested in works by photographers who explore relationships between traditional and contemporary cultures and aesthetics. Works by Asian photographers Hiroshi Sugimoto, Atta Kim, Watanabe Yoshio, Sze Tsung Leong, and Kenro Izu are among my favorites.