Gordon Parks: “Homeward to the Prairie I Come”
September 7, 2021 – May 28, 2022
This exhibition features photographs donated by Gordon Parks to Kansas State University (K-State) in Manhattan, Kansas, in 1973. It was the first time that the artist personally curated a set of photographs to donate to a public institution, a kind of self-portrait directed towards the home crowd. The exhibition title includes the first line of a poem written by Parks in 1984, commissioned by and published in the Manhattan Mercury. K-State’s New Prairie Press will publish an accompanying open-access digital catalogue with new research on Parks and Kansas.
Image: Gordon Parks, Pool Hall (Fort Scott, Kansas), 1950, printed in 2017, gelatin silver print, gift of Gordon Parks and the Gordon Parks Foundation, 2017.445
Doug Barrett: Find Your Voice
September 7, 2021 – May 28, 2022
Barrett is a photographer and videographer based in Manhattan, Kansas. His work demonstrates how Gordon Parks continues to inspire contemporary artists. Barrett’s projects include interviewing, photographing, and telling the stories of homeless veterans, creating a collective portrait of the Yuma Street community of Manhattan, Kansas, and documenting the Black Lives Matter movement in Kansas.
Image: Doug Barrett, Will the hate end? from the series George Floyd Protest, 2020, digital print, 32 x 22 in., 2020.20