Joe Longobardi: Mind heart and the City
April 6-27, 2018
Joe Longobardi: Mind heart and the City
Opening reception: Friday, April 6, 5:00-9:00 PM
Exhibition hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM.
Mind heart and the City documents downtown Asheville’s most recent iteration of gentrification as it strives to maintain the diversity of its bohemian mountain culture. The images reveal a people and culture experiencing a paradigm shift as it transitions into the new millennium.
The genesis of this project began approximately ten years earlier, and did not come to completion until 2017. The work focuses on the burgeoning bohemian mountain town of Asheville, North Carolina. As with many American cities, Asheville has undergone a new phase of gentrification that first began in the late 1970’s as part of a campaign to revive the city’s downtown economy. The unfortunate trade off was the dismantling and partitioning of largely African-American communities and neighborhood businesses. This latest incarnation to revive and rebuild Asheville gradually began in the 1990’s, continuing until the slow down of The Great Recession of 2007 and 2008. As the city gradually began to recover, rebuilding eventually metamorphosed into unchecked development. Realizing that much of the cultural climate and familiarity that I understood to be the last of old Asheville would eventually be but a memory, in 2007 I began a conscious effort to photograph the immediate downtown area.
The photographs in the exhibition and the two accompanying books were captured completely on film, shot over a ten year period. Although the use of film is not the main focus the project, my intent was to rediscover the 20th century humanist approach to street photography via the utilization of old manual film cameras to explore and document city life.
These photographs focus on the immediate downtown area of Asheville. As with many growing cities, it is a beacon for most cultural and political activity—it’s heart, if you will! This is the portrait of a city as captured on my daily round.
In an age when most of our activities are under constant surveillance by cameras placed at every street corner, park, or shop, taking photographs in public is a somewhat archaic if not obsolete approach to documenting our surroundings. Still, the goal is to capture people: people caught up in their routines; people in flux; people making sense of their roles in a new society as it transitions from the twentieth century into the new millennium. The result is twofold as the process not only freezes time, but serves as a journal for one’s own experiences and perspective. The photographer is both a witness and participant in the life event.
The people featured are both individuals and archetypes of what is to be expected in a city like Asheville. They are at once both provincial and universal, allowing us to better relate to the people and their unique circumstances. It is this paradigm and dichotomy that inspired me to engage the public rather than being a mere observer, silent on the sidelines. What I have learned is that to truly capture life, you must acknowledge and embrace it on its own terms.
These images reveal more than moments culled from everyday events, but to a degree, street theater, as I direct the viewer to visually experience what could never be conveyed in words alone. In a culture seemingly becoming more tribal and isolated, the simple gesture of interacting, and understanding the lives of people arbitrarily encountered in a public space, may be the last gasp of retaining our collective connection as one people, sharing both life experiences and the finality of time.
Personal websites: http://joelongobardiphotography.com
http://joelongobardistreetphotographer.com
YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BLrweC47cA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoeLongobardiPhotographer/
Bio
Joe Longobardi is a photographer, writer, musician, and illustrator. Since 2008, he has been working professionally as a documentary and street photographer. Joe attended The Art Institute of Boston where he studied graphic design and Illustration. He was also a founding member of the recording and touring Metal band Attika releasing several album in the U.S, Europe and Japan.
Joe’s photography has been exhibited at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts; the Biltmore Estate; Southeast Gallery of Photographic Art, Vero Beach, FL; CREGS Lens on Gender and Sexuality Exhibition, San Francisco, CA; Lenoir-Rhyne University; and the Asheville Art Museum. Solo exhibitions include Living Art at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, and Urban Photography from the Streets of a Bohemian Mountain Town at UNC Asheville.
His photos have appeared in numerous publications including Our State Magazine, The New York Times, F-Stop Magazine, Shelterforce Magazine, Mel Bay Publications, and the Laurel of Asheville Magazine. In 2014 Joe served as the sole juror for the 2nd Annual Knoxville Photo (hosted by the Arts & Culture Alliance) in Knoxville, TN.