Kenneth Josephson, American, 1932- Kenneth Bradley Josephson's photographs are about the medium itself: its illusionistic capabilities, inherent technical properties, and shifting meanings depending on context. As a student of Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan in Chicago at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Josephson learned the significance of abstraction and how to juxtapose and manipulate forms as tools for his clever, often surreal, tableaux. In his works he examines how an object and a photograph of that object relate, with humor and a reverence for the element of chance. In so doing, he calls attention to the two-dimensionality of the medium as a way to question our understanding of reality as it is represented photographically. His related series include Marks and Evidences of Events and Images within Images (begun 1963), History of Photography (begun 1970), and Archaeological Images (begun 1975). Born in Detroit, Josephson bought his first camera in 1944. He attended the Rochester Institute of Technology (1951-53), earning a certificate before being drafted into the armed forces in 1953. He returned to rit and earned his B.F.A. in 1957. When his wife died in 1958, Josephson moved to Chicago to attend iit (M.S., 1960), then began teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1963, he was a founding member of the Society for Photographic Education and, the following year, his work was included in The Photographer's Eye, a group exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has taught as an exchange teacher at the Konstfackskolan, Stockholm (1966-67), the University of Hawaii, Honolulu (1967-68), the Rhode Island School of Design (1973), and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (1974). In 1975, Josephson traveled in India for three months, teaching upon his return at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. He has since taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and continued at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Josephson has had numerous international one-person exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1983), and received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1972) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1975, 1979). His publications include The Bread Book (1973), Portfolio: Kenneth Josephson (1975), and Kenneth Josephson, a postcard portfolio (1980). Josephson lives in Chicago. A.W. Source: Cleveland Museum

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