On Wednesday, February 15, photographer Zoe Strauss addressed the Middle/Upper School Assembly as this year’s annual Cohen Art Lecture speaker. Her presentation coincided with the her mid-career retrospective, “Zoe Strauss: Ten Years,” which opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in January.
Strauss, a renowned local photographer, is known for her regional and urban subject matter. Her portraits of marginal neighborhoods of Philadelphia focus on the working-class experience; they lovingly and respectfully document the grit of urban life. Strauss annually exhibits her work under a stretch of I-95 in South Philly, taking it out of the exclusive confines of the gallery and museum and bringing it to the people and places she turns her camera on. Strauss is a recipient of a 2005 Pew Fellowship of the Arts and she was selected to participate in the 2006 Whitney Biennial.
Abigail Cohen was a graduate of the class of 1991. Her life as an artist and photographer was dedicated to the pursuit of social and aesthetic concerns. This annual lecture is made possible by the generous support of her brother, Jonathan Cohen ’88, and his wife, Julia Pershan.
Click here to read more about Zoe Strauss.