PRESS PREVIEW
A press preview of the exhibition is scheduled for Tuesday, February 11, 2003, from 10 am to noon. For more information, or to RSVP, please call the Corcoran’s Communications Office at 202.639.1703 or email PR@corcoran.org.
Washington, DC - The first solo museum show of Joseph Mills’ photographs, Inner City unflinchingly chronicles the physical decay and poverty-stricken street life of downtown Washington, DC during the late 1980s. In scenes showing uneasy interaction between young and old, between black and white, between the middle class and people living on the margins of society, Mills exposes the city’s fragile psychology, depicting mental illness, alcoholism, and poverty in the nation’s capital. On view at the Corcoran Gallery of Art from February 15 through April 14, 2003, Joseph Mills: Inner City draws attention to a side of Washington, DC that is largely ignored.
One reason for the powerful empathy of these photographs is their personal resonance with the life of the artist. When he was twenty-one, Joseph Mills was institutionalized during a period of mental illness that he once termed "seamless paranoid delusion." He has struggled with psychological issues ever since and was intermittently afflicted during the period in which he made the photographs in Inner City. Befriending many of the people he photographed, Mills worked to portray not only their precarious mental state but also the world as they experienced it, unhinged from rationality, uncontrolled by the rules and boundaries of society.
According to Mills, "In my photographs, there’s not a lot of social setting, or group shots. Mostly you see individuals, and it’s because I see their condition, and I try to see myself in them. I’m trying to work out something inside of me."
Joseph Mills: Inner City features more than 50 photographs, ranging in size from 8 x 10 inches to 11 x 14 inches. In 1999, Mills stumbled on a box of unexposed, long-expired photo paper. Sensing that this was the perfect means to explore a now buried history, he began to look back at his film negatives of the downtown area. Mills selected 75 images that he had never before printed. The expired paper yielded startling effects: the prints are a mix of unexpected colors, tonalities, and striations. Mills completed the effect by applying furniture varnish to the images, adding an historic and dreamlike feel to these scenes of the recent past. In addition to the 50 works from this series, the exhibition also includes approximately 10 related photographs, also made on the streets of Washington, DC. These photographs are coated in varnish and mounted to found objects, including lumber, suitcase lids, aluminum sheeting, pieces of furniture, and discarded architectural details such as doors.
"Mills wants each of his images to be seen as an object, not just a photograph," notes Paul Roth, Corcoran Assistant Curator of Photography and Media Arts. "He is making an explicit connection between the discarded artifacts and actual lives that are essentially discarded and marginalized. Through his work, he is melding people and their environment."
Born in 1951, Joseph Mills grew up in Washington, DC and has photographed the city extensively, beginning at age 15. A graduate of American University, Mills also
studied at the Corcoran College of Art + Design. He has participated in a number of exhibitions in Washington, DC. Mills’ photographs are included in the permanent collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Texas), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC), and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, VA), among other museums. In addition to his personal projects, Joseph Mills is the longtime photographer at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC.
"Bearing witness to painful realities, Joseph Mills’ extraordinary photographs transcend documentary expression," adds Roth. "Mills’ perspective is compassionate and hopeful, and despite their often painful scenes of reality, his images are often characterized by an odd grace."
RELATED EXHIBITION
A selection of Joseph Mills’ photomontages and collages will be on display at Hemphill Fine Arts, Washington, DC, from January 15 - March 8, 2003. The opening is scheduled for Wednesday, January 15th from 6:30 - 8:30 pm. Beginning with images culled from Life magazine and incorporating techniques of collage, photography, and montage, this exhibition highlights Mills’ vision and skill with a variety of media.
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
A comprehensive catalogue accompanies Joseph Mills: Inner City. The book features an essay by Anne Tucker, a leading photography scholar and noted curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The catalogue is published by Nazraeli Press and Hemphill Fine Arts, Washington, DC.
EXHIBITION ORGANIZATION
Joseph Mills: Inner City is organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
PRESS PREVIEW
A press preview of the exhibition is scheduled for Tuesday, February 11, 2003, from 10 am to noon. For more information, or to RSVP, please call the Corcoran’s Communications Office at 202.639.1703 or email PR@corcoran.org.
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CONTACT:
Kristin Guiter
Manager of Media Relations
(202) 639-1867,
kguiter@corcoran.org
Media Resources:
Curator Paul Roth
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