Len Bernstein Master Series

The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts is proud to announce two talks by photographer and educator Len Bernstein, the first in our new Master Lecture Series:

“What Do the World and People Deserve: the Life and Work of Jacob Riis” and

“The Art Way of Seeing and the Pride We Are Looking For: the Photographs of Edward Weston”

Mr. Bernstein has graciously agreed to travel from New York to present these remarkable talks on two of America’s most important photographers, with Aesthetic Realism as his criterion for showing the meaning of their work and its deep relevance to our lives. This event will take place on Sunday, March 10^th from 1 to 3pm. Our esteemed speaker will also have his photographs on display, and his book Photography, Life, and the Opposites will be available in the museum bookstore.

This presentation is a must for everyone, including photographers at all levels, museum professionals, and educators in the medium. Len Bernstein has presented public lectures and workshops at universities, museums, and art centers in the United States and abroad. His extensive body of photographic work resides in the permanent collections of museums and libraries in the U.S. and Europe.

Price: $45, $40 for members

Seats are limited.

Mr. Bernstein writes of these talks:

“Jacob Riis and Edward Weston, grandly significant in the history of photography, represent dramatically different approaches to the medium. Riis was a social reformer whose photographs were in the service of greater justice to people, and Weston wanted to honor the beauty of natural forms to be found, for example, in an ordinary cabbage leaf. These two talks shed light on the enduring power of their images with this landmark principle, stated by Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism, as the critical basis: ‘All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.’ It is thrilling to see how a successful photograph—whatever its subject matter, style, or century in which it was taken—is a oneness of opposites, such as luminosity and shadow, grandeur and humility, familiarity and surprise, and these are the very same opposites we are trying to put together in ourselves. As we come to understand the beauty of the images and delve into the published memoirs of these eminent photographers, we will learn about ourselves—how we hope to see the world, and what makes for the authentic self-expression we long to have.”