Flesh & Metal, Bodies & Buildings: Works from Jonathan Hyman's Archive of 9/11 Vernacular Memorials Curated by Pedro Lasch

About Jonathan Hyman

Photographer and Bethel, New York resident Jonathan Hyman graduated from Rutgers University where he was a Henry Rutgers Scholar. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Hunter College and is best known for his ongoing documentary work surrounding the September 11th attacks. From the very day of the 9/11 attacks, Hyman has been photographing the vernacular artwork created by Americans on the side of the road and in public places in response to the attacks, as well as recording hundreds of oral histories. His work is being studied by scholars across a broad range of academic disciplines -- from History to American Studies and from Cultural Anthropology to Folk Art and Art History. Hyman lectures widely about his work and experiences at universities and libraries in the United States and abroad. He is Associate Director for Conflict and Visual Culture initiatives at the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.

To mark the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Hyman’s work was featured in two museum exhibitions. The first, at Ground Zero in New York City, titled, 9/11 and the American Landscape: Photographs by Jonathan Hyman was the first public programming organized by the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. The second exhibit, 9/11: A Nation Remembers featuring 100 photographs, was at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. On the tenth anniversary of the attacks Hyman’s photographs will be exhibited in Duke University’s Special Collections Library and published by the University of Texas Press, A Photographer’s Journey: The Landscape of 9/11.

Hyman’s photographs have been featured in Time magazine, as well as many national and international publications. Beyond his well-known work on September 11 Memorials, his areas of interest and expertise as a photographer fall under the rubric of “Things Found on The Side of The Road,” and they include: public memory, memorialization and speech, social class issues and visual public discourse, roadside commerce, urban street art, rural vernacular roadside art, and environmental concerns.

More information on his work in general may be found at:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/09/911-as-art-photographer-captures-vernacular-response-to-attacks.html 

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/folkart.html?scp=1&sq=jonathan%20hyman&st=cse

http://www.squidoo.com/jonathan_hyman 

http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/projects/americanfaces/hyman.html

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2006/911_folk_art_multimedia/