The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
Laurence Salzmann
Visual Arts
2001 Grantee
Born 1944
Wrestling, a brutal, physical, playful, violent graceful sport, is only one facet of Laurence Salzmann’s most recent body of photographic work. Another facet of the work lies in the 11 to 18 year-old wrestlers themselves, struggling toward maturity and manhood though an intimate if punishing contact sport. And yet another aspect of this work is the athletes’ home, Cuba, itself a nation struggling to survive physically and spiritually in a changed world. The photographer writes; “I view my photographs as an attempt to create local and international bridges in a visual medium that appeals to people of all ages and cultures.” Salzmann took the title of this series from a sign which, when translated, reads, “Monday to Friday: Wrestling.” But the Spanish word lucha also means not only “wrestle” but also “struggle,” so Salzmann titled the collection of images he made in Cuba’s gyms Cuba, de Lunes a Viernes: La Lucha (Monday to Friday: The Struggle. As with much of his previous work, Salzmann’s photographs involve the act of looking across a chasm that urgently needs a bridge. In “Face to Face: Encounters between Jews & Blacks,” an earlier photographic series, Salzmann explored the faces of racial and religious bias.
Salzmann received both his B.A. and M.A. from Temple University. He has had solo exhibitions of his work both nationally and internationally including in Berlin, Tel Aviv, Paris, Amsterdam, Budapest, Vienna, and New York. His honors have included a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an International Research Exchange Commission Grant to Romania, and a Fulbright-Hays Grant to Romania. He has several publications including Face to Face: Encounters between Jews & Blacks (1996, Blue Flower Press). His work is in the collections of Philadelphia Museum of Art; International Center for Photography, New York; Beth Hatefutsoth Museum, Tel Aviv; Jewish Museum, New York; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and George Pompidou Center, Paris.
For more information about this artist:
www.laurencesalzmann.com
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