Art Museum hosts installation exhibit by photographer Tim Davis
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 26, 2025) — The University of Kentucky Art Museum is presenting “Upstate Event Horizon,” an installation/event featuring the work of artist, educator and writer Tim Davis, through Aug. 2. Museum visitors can touch, arrange and rearrange a selection of Davis’ unframed color prints laid out on a table that wraps the gallery, making their own combinations and sequences. This decision-making activity mimics Davis’ own experience in designing the pace and juxtaposition of images in his exemplary photo books.
Davis will be on campus to deliver the Robert C. May Photography Lecture 4 p.m. March 7, in the Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall.
“I enter the classroom as an evangelist for the idea that photography is the most complex, important form of communication in our culture, and that it takes energy, will, humor, pathos, research, and legwork to learn to use the medium effectively.”
This statement by Davis affirms his belief in active image-making, something he has done consistently since the early 1990s. Davis’ photographs revel in surfaces and qualities of color and light, and he is a skillful chronicler of how everyday endeavors and conditions can be captured by the camera. Davis gives himself challenging projects, such as his decades-long visual poem, “I’m Looking Through You,” with its mix of commercial signage, insects, machinery, sunsets, and diverse citizens at work and leisure.
“Tim’s exhibition is a rare museum experience. Typically, and for good reason, DO NOT TOUCH policies keeps artworks safe from damage,” said Stuart Horodner, UK Art Museum director and curator of the Davis exhibition. “But in this case, our visitors are encouraged to move his 276 work prints around, becoming familiar with how the artist sees, and making connections between his images.”
Davis earned his Bachelor of Arts from Bard College in 1991 and currently teaches there as associate professor of photography. His work has been exhibited widely and his photographs are in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum and the Walker Art Center. His art writing has appeared in publications including Aperture, Blind Spot, Bomb and Cabinet.
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