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The Work of Anton Gautama with Celina Lunsford and Paula Tognarelli

Wednesday, June 23 | 12PM 

FotoFest is pleased to present a conversation with Celina Lunsford, Artistic Director at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, and Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director and Curator at the Griffin Museum of Photography, focusing on the work of artist and photographer Anton Gautama (1969–2021).

Anton Gautama was known to all who worked with him as a kind, generous, and brilliant artist. Despite the brevity of his career, Gautama quickly made a name for himself in the contemporary photography world, having participated in numerous museum exhibitions, biennial projects, and festivals around the globe including XX Encuentros Abiertos Festival de La Luz (Buenos Aires, BR, 2018), Ballarat International Foto Biennial (Victoria, AU, 2019), and the FotoFest Biennial 2020 exhibition Ten by Ten (2020). His most recent and last showing was in FotoFest’s public art exhibition Public Life: Home and the people who live there wherein Gautama presented a suite of images from his series Home Sweet Home (2016–18), a body of work that resonated with audiences in Houston and beyond for its honest portrayal of post-immigration life and for its reflection on colonial histories.

For this program, Celina Lunsford and Paula Tognarelli will join FotoFest’s curatorial team to share and discuss the work of Gautama through the lens of their unique collaborations with the artist.

About the guests

Anton Gautama was an artist living and working in Surabaya, Indonesia. His work has been exhibited at museums, galleries, and festivals around the globe including the Ballarat International Foto Biennial, Australia; FotoFest Brazil, Porto Alegre; the Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts, Portland; and the Goethe Institut Jakarta, Indonesia among many others. His work has been published by renowned publications including LensCulture, National Geographic Travel, and PDN magazine. Guatama’s publications include Pabean Passage (2016) and Home Sweet Home (2017). In addition to his arts practice, Guatama is the Director of a private photography gallery in Malang and is the founder of ALFALINK, a prominent overseas education consultancy with branches throughout Indonesia.

Celina Lunsford is a curator and writer on photography based in Frankfurt am Main. Throughout her career she has curated and lectured in Asia, Europe, and the USA, covering historical and contemporary aspects of photography. As the Artistic Director of the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, founded in 1984, she is responsible for the exhibitions program. She has written and edited numerous books on international photography and she is a guest lecturer for Philips Universität, Marburg. As a guest curator she has worked for major international photography festivals. She is a leading expert on the American photographer Imogen Cunningham.

Paula Tognarelli is the Executive Director and Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography. The Griffin Museum of Photography located in Winchester outside Boston, Massachusetts, is a nonprofit photography museum whose mission is to promote an appreciation of photographic art and a broader understanding of its visual, emotional and social impact. The museum houses 3 galleries and maintains 4 satellite gallery spaces. Ms. Tognarelli is responsible for producing over 54 exhibitions a year at the Griffin and its surrounding satellites. She holds an M.S. in Arts Administration from Boston University, BA from Regis College, is a graduate of the New England School of Photography and a candidate for her Masters in Education at Lesley University.

Image: Anton Gautama, The Golden Age, 2017. From the series Home Sweet Home, 2016-17. Courtesy of the artist.