“In the Sunshine of Neglect” with Author and Curator Douglas McCulloh

Freedom can be found at the margins. That’s the subject of a new book, companion piece to the survey exhibition, In the Sunshine of Neglect: Defining Photographs and Radical Experiments in Inland Southern California, 1950 to the Present, curated by UC Riverside ARTS: California Museum of Photography Senior Curator Douglas McCulloh.

In the Sunshine of Neglect includes 194 works by 54 photographers, including Kim Abeles, Ansel Adams, Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Laurie Brown, Judy Chicago, Joe Deal, Lewis deSoto, John Divola, Christina Fernandez, Judy Fiskin, Robbert Flick, Anthony Hernandez, Sant Khalsa, Richard Misrach, Kenda North, Allan Sekula, Julie Shafer, Julius Shulman, Joel Sternfeld, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Larry Sultan, Kim Stringfellow, among others. Also included in the book are original essays by renowned authors and photographers including McCulloh and Susan Straight.

In the Sunshine of Neglect was a simultaneous two-part exhibition at UCR ARTS: California Museum of Photography and the Riverside Art Museum. The show presented the title’s territory on the eastern edge of Los Angeles Basin as an experimental tabula rasa playground for photographers, where nothing was at stake, so everything was possible.

Inland Southern California is a region of 4.5 million people, but it is also a periphery. Established photographic artists and rising experimentalists have long used the area as a laboratory. The visions of these artists—experimental, hard-eyed, and imaginative—influenced the course of contemporary art and photography. In the Sunshine of Neglect was the first exhibition to survey this remarkable history.

Douglas McCulloh is a photographer, writer, and curator based in Southern California. His work has been shown internationally in more than 250 exhibitions including Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; Musée de l’Elysee, Lausanne; Musée Nicéphore Niépce, France; La Triennale di Milano, Italy; Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City; Institute de Cultura, Barcelona; Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles; Southeast Museum of Photography, Florida; Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; and Cooper Union School of Art, New York. McCulloh’s fifth book is The Great Picture: Making the World’s Largest Photograph, part of the Legacy Project Collaborative and published by Hudson Hills Press, New York.

McCulloh is a five-time recipient of support from the California Council for the Humanities and serves as senior curator for UCR ARTS: California Museum of Photography. The most noted of his curatorial projects is Sight Unseen: International Photography by Blind Artists, the first major survey of photography by blind artists, which has traveled to fifteen museums in five countries. Exhibitions curated by McCulloh have shown in a range of venues: Kennedy Center for the Arts, Washington D.C.; Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Winnipeg; Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City; Flacon Art Center, Moscow; Center for Visual Art, Denver, Colorado; Manuel Álvarez Bravo Center, Oaxaca; Sejong Center, Seoul, South Korea; Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China; and Peterson Automotive Museum, Los Angeles.

Cati Porter, Executive Director of Inlandia Institute will lead a conversation with the author.

This program is presented in partnership with Inlandia Institute.