The Palm Beach Photographic Centre presents Beatitude, an exhibition of over 70 images and commanding enlargements includes iconic culture-bending poets, activists, and artists of the Beat Generation, including Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Amiri Baraka, Kenneth Rexroth, Michael McClure, and more.
This collection of images taken in the 1960s and ’70s by poet/photographer/activist Joey Tranchina were stored away for nearly 50 years before being discovered by his son in 2018 and later shared with critic and art historian Dr. Anthony Bannon and art consultant and producer Dolores Lusitana.
Beatitude captures a cross-generational array of multi-cultural, race and gender diverse artists linked by a “Beat” aesthetic which founded an early social movement that championed humanity over economy, ecology over industry, and equal rights for women and men regardless of race, social status, or sexual orientation.
Beatitude : The Beat Attitude, a book of Joey Tranchina’s photographs, with an essay by Bannon and introduction by American Book Award winning poet Ed Sanders, is forthcoming internationally from Steidl Verlag.
“Tranchina’s work must be the most extensive pictorial assembly of Beat related artists and thinkers depicted by a single photographer,” says Dr. Bannon, the author of 49 books and emeritus director (1996-2012) of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY. “The photographs, rendered in dramatic black and white, include masterful representations of the heroes recognized in their time by Nobel and Pulitzer awards, Academy and Obie prizes for film and theater, and appointments by both the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and the American Society of Arts and Letters. Here are the poets laureate named by states and nations and the recipients of the highest praise granted internationally through university doctorates.”
“These were the international thought leaders,” adds Lusitana, who organized the archive for exhibition and publication and served as the artist’s project director. “Joey Tranchina cast a wide net in his own appreciation and participation in the global change of culture. Time has supported his selections, including Nobel Prize winning Czeslaw Milosz; the great Russian poets whose readings came to fill a sports stadium, namely Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesensky; and Margaret Atwood, an early contributor to Beat publications in Canada.”
“The Palm Beach Photographic Centre’s 35 years of service in Florida – and the nation – is nicely summarized by Beatitude, for ours has definitely been a Beat Attitude, always ready for change, proceeding with a vision to participate in a spirit of excellence and achievement,” says NeJame. “This show is a perfect way to begin our 35th anniversary celebration—and in conjunction with this exhibition we will be presenting a series of lectures, conversations, and special guests, who participated in the Beat revolution.”
Joey Tranchina : Beatitude : The Beat Attitude
Through January 6, 2024
Palm Beach Photographic Centre (PBPC)
415 Clematis St.
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
www.workshop.org
For more information about Joey Tranchina and his work go to: www.transparent-press.com
