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Daniel Nicoletta
Harvey Milk and the San Francisco SceneMay 9 - June 20
Overtones
12703 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles
(310) 915-0346 www.overtonesgallery.com
Harvey Milk and the San Francisco Scene
Daniel Nicoletta, New Years Eve Day on Castro Street, December 31, 1977, quadtone black and white inkjet print on Somerset archival paper, edition of 12, 17" x 22"
November 8, 1977: Openly gay candidate Harvey Milk is elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Daniel Nicoletta is there to capture every glorious moment of the day and night on film. Nicoletta had been taking pictures of Milk and the whole developing Castro scene ever since Milk had hired him to work in his camera store in 1975. Nicoletta has continued ever since to capture historic and everyday moments in the LGBT world and to serve as the point person for Milk-related research.
For its May show, OVERTONES presents Daniel Nicoletta's first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. Nicoletta is still San Francisco-based and as dedicated to his subjects as ever. On view will be iconic images of Harvey Milk, photographs of the vibrant LGBT world Nicoletta has inhabited, and photographs he took on the set of the Academy Award-winning film Milk.
Nicoletta tends to take black-and-white, documentary, photojournalistic-style images. We look at photography differently nowadays, skeptical of any insistence on "truth." Nicoletta, however, possesses a trust in his camera that comes across in the vividness and urgency of his images. Nicoletta's pictures, especially of those early years of the LGBT rights struggle, offer a rare and very genuine experience, taking us back to a critical time in our nation's civil rights history. But in Nicoletta's images there is also a separate truth, an insistence that the individuals portrayed are for real. The portrayals demand to be savored. These are generous images, of people living all of life's emotions despite polite society's insistence that they not exist.
OVERTONES, of course, has a tremendous history of participating in the politics of life, and of carefully curating exhibits that address the serious issues that surround us. OVERTONES director Elizabeta Betinski writes that, "It is our hope that the power of Nicoletta's imagery and the humanness of the stories his images tell will aid in bringing about a world where equality is enjoyed by all."
For its May show, OVERTONES presents Daniel Nicoletta's first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. Nicoletta is still San Francisco-based and as dedicated to his subjects as ever. On view will be iconic images of Harvey Milk, photographs of the vibrant LGBT world Nicoletta has inhabited, and photographs he took on the set of the Academy Award-winning film Milk.
Nicoletta tends to take black-and-white, documentary, photojournalistic-style images. We look at photography differently nowadays, skeptical of any insistence on "truth." Nicoletta, however, possesses a trust in his camera that comes across in the vividness and urgency of his images. Nicoletta's pictures, especially of those early years of the LGBT rights struggle, offer a rare and very genuine experience, taking us back to a critical time in our nation's civil rights history. But in Nicoletta's images there is also a separate truth, an insistence that the individuals portrayed are for real. The portrayals demand to be savored. These are generous images, of people living all of life's emotions despite polite society's insistence that they not exist.
OVERTONES, of course, has a tremendous history of participating in the politics of life, and of carefully curating exhibits that address the serious issues that surround us. OVERTONES director Elizabeta Betinski writes that, "It is our hope that the power of Nicoletta's imagery and the humanness of the stories his images tell will aid in bringing about a world where equality is enjoyed by all."