FotoFest announces theme for 2004 show

Art Business News, Jan, 2004

HOUSTON -- Plans are underway for FotoFest's Tenth International Biennial Month of Photography and Photo-Related Arts, which will be held March 12 to April 12 here.

The FotoFest Biennial, which presents mixed and new media work alongside classical photography, is a citywide event with more than 120 participating organizations. In addition to the exhibits organized by FotoFest, independently curated exhibits are being presented by museums, commercial art galleries and alternative spaces across Houston and Galveston. The biennial will open with a downtown celebration, including exhibitions, music, performances and large-scale projections.

FotoFest 2004 will explore the issue of water in several ways, including curated and commissioned exhibitions and installations, a film and video series and a public forum with Rice University. FotoFest will create 10 to 15 exhibitions that examine water from many perspectives--as an environmental resource, a spiritual force, an historical pathway for people and cultures, an object of commerce, a reflection of beauty and a repository of life and death.

In addition to its exhibits, FotoFest is developing, for the first time, a film and video series paralleling the scope of the exhibitions and installations. The three to five-week series, from early March through mid-April, is being done in collaboration with several Houston film, video and television venues.

The first two weeks of the biennial will feature FotoFest's expanded portfolio review program known as The International Meeting Place. It will bring art professionals and collectors from museums, publishing houses, galleries and photography events across the world together to view the work of artists.

FotoFest's Fine Print Auction will take place the first week of the show with Denise Bethel, Sotheby's vice president of photography, as auctioneer. More than 100 photographic works by contemporary U.S. and international artists will be offered. The preview auction exhibition will take place in early March.

Visit www.fotofest.org for additional information.