Paul Baker Prindle Lecture

Paul Baker Prindle is the new director of University Galleries the University of Nevada, with plans to update other art galleries and spaces on campus and fill those spaces with a variety of art. He’s a curator, scouting the world for the best new artists. He predicts that Reno will become more of a cultural center. As a practicing artist with diverse curatorial and exhibition experience, he offers a fresh perspective on the contemporary art collection program. He feels is exhibition spaces should reflect the quality of the institution and a focus for supporting statewide art. On October 24, 2013, Paul Baker Prindle lectured with a slide show at the Sheppard Gallery in the Church Fine Arts Building. His research focuses on contemporary photography; queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender art practice; contemporary art made by Indigenous Americans; and Outsider art. He began by pointing out the contemporary photography often over photoshops artwork. He stressed that images are often not truthful, aside from basic cropping far too many alterations are performed on photographs, to a point that the viewer is often unsure of reality. He asks who is in the picture? What are they like? He feels that photographs are an intoxicating love for the object, combined with a loss of the past, as it will never be the same. He calls this phenomenon, melancholy repetition. He explains this as returning to a process that fails. Current fashion magazines reflect a triumph of consumerism, according to Prindle. The example he used is photoshopped models of the real versus very real people. Thus Prindle embarked upon his journey to travel and photograph places where cruel and inhumane murders occurred toward gay men. His images portray a strange sadness and awareness of the event. His investigation of how a place bears the mark of subculture and trauma, is thearaputic to filling in the gaps, and working through the sorrow. Prindle compares these murders to the Jewish holocaust victims of Nazi, Germany. Through midrash or oral history storytelling, the parts that are missing are explained. Memory is about filling in the gaps, and it changes with time. His works attempt to put sad places into public view until the shocking no longer has that effect. Until homophobic killings cease, hate crimes must be brought into awareness. He does not attempt to spell out what the viewer feels, but rather he allows them to draw their own conclusions. Therefore the viewer steps in and finishes the story, and imagine what this experience would be like. Prindle explains that rebels risk things, and asks the viewers to be uncomfortable with the situation. He’s an artist and photographer, looking at social issues through a camera lens. “I photograph hate crime sites,” he says. “I look at how mythology of the West is tied up to the gender of the landscape. The construction of the American West.”“Visual arts are one of few disciplines meant for growing ideas outside of the brain.” He refers to Reno’s “post-gambling” economy, addressing the decline in tourism and the popularity of local business and arts. Creative thinking helps tackle a community’s problems such as poverty, discrimination and inequality, according to Prindle. Questions to ask Prindle are how long will it take to increase the cultural foundation of Reno and how will he go about it?