March 12 - May 9, 2021
Houston Center for Photography (HCP) is pleased to announce the opening of Cowboys Don’t Shoot Straight (Like They Used To). The exhibition will be on view from March 12 to May 9, 2021.
Cowboys Don’t Shoot Straight (Like They Used To) presents a series of large-scale, photo-based installations from the lens-based artist, Pacifico Silano, whose ongoing practice explores imagery sourced from vintage gay pornography magazines published after the Stonewall Riots of 1969. As an artist born during the height of the AIDS epidemic in New York, Silano’s practice is keenly attuned to the sense of loss and invisibility felt by many in the gay community during the 1980s. As a child, he lost his uncle due to complications from HIV AIDS and witnessed his family’s subsequent erasure of any visual record of his life. While his biography figures prominently into the initial impulse behind his archival interventions and source material, this work extends far beyond the personal, diving deeply into the slipperiness of the medium of photography and the mutability of its meaning over time.
Through cutting and layering, Silano obscures the explicit nature of the original imagery, instead presenting quiet, tender moments of reflection that become at once memorials for those who have passed as well as points of reflection on our current moment.
Pacifico Silano is a lens-based artist whose work is an exploration of print culture, the circulation of imagery, and LGBTQ identity. He received his MFA in Photography, Video & Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Bronx Museum; Tacoma Art Museum; Oude Kerk, Amsterdam; and Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, and will be part of the group exhibition, Fantasy America, opening at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in March. He has had solo shows at Baxter [email protected], The Bronx Museum of the Arts Block Gallery, Rubber-Factory, Stellar Projects, NYC and Fragment Gallery, Moscow. Reviews of his work have appeared in The New Yorker, Artforum, and The Washington Post. Awards include the Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship, NYFA Fellowship in Photography, and being a Finalist for the Aperture Foundation Portfolio Prize. His work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Visit his website at www.pacificosilano.com.
Ashlyn Davis Burns is the former Executive Director & Curator of Houston Center for Photography and the Co-founder of Assembly, a new gallery, agency, and creative studio that represents a diverse roster of artists working in photography and the moving image. For more information and visuals, please contact Jaelyn Lyles at [email protected]
___________________________________________________________________________________________
ABOUT HOUSTON CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY
Founded in 1981, Houston Center for Photography is a nonprofit organization offering year-round exhibitions, workshops, publications, outreach programs, lectures, classes, and home to an on-site library housing more than 2,500 books on photography as well as a state-of-the-art digital darkroom. HCP’s mission is to increase society’s understanding and appreciation of photography and its evolving role in contemporary culture. HCP strives to encourage artists, build audiences, stimulate dialogue, and promote inquiry about photography and related media through education, exhibitions, publications, fellowship programs, and community collaboration. HCP is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization serving as a resource to its members and the community with programs that have regional and national impact. HCP is located at 1441 West Alabama in Houston’s Museum District and is open by appointment only. Gallery hours are 11 am to 7 pm Wednesday and Thursday, 11 am to 5 pm Friday, 11 am – 7 pm Saturday and Sunday. For more information, please visit www.hcponline.org.
HOUSTON CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY SUPPORTERS
Houston Center for Photography is generously supported by The City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance; The Houston Endowment; The Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation; The Brown Foundation; The Joan Hohlt and Roger Wich Foundation; The Joy of Giving Something, Inc; The Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation; The National Endowment for the Arts; The Anne Levy Fund; Texas Commission on the Arts; Nancy O’Connor; Nena and David Marsh; Bryn Larsen; The Wortham Foundation; Nancy C. Allen; Fairfax and Risher Randall; Louisa S. Sarofim; Patricia J. Eifel and Jim Belli; Carol and Paul Liffman; Joan Morgenstern; Bevin and Dan Dubrowski; Muffet Blake; Katy and Michael Casey; Anne & Charles Duncan; Duncan Genesis Foundation; Sandy Lloyd; Fan and Peter Morris; Celia and Jay Munisteri; Meg and Nelson Murray; Texas Women for the Arts; The Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation; Elizabeth and James Whitehead; Barbara and Geoffrey Koslov; Libbie J. Masterson; Lacey and Ross Brunner; Brenda & John Duncan; The Beth Block Foundation; Cara and George Barer; Krista and Mike Dumas; J. Andrew Nairn; Katherine and Bill Phelps; Paul Smead; Shelley Calton Nelson and Stuart Nelson; Marybeth and Tom Flaherty; Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen; Philip Alter; Catherine Couturier; Cindy Fitch; Stephanie Larsen; Tiffany and Charles Masterson; JoAnn Williams; Frazier King; Brooke and Adam Beebe; Frank Benton; Alice and Risher Randall; Betty Pecore and Howard Hilliard; Devin Blondes; Jereann Chaney; Paul Charles; Karen Chiao; Susan and Patrick Cook; Gabriella Guerra; Dillon Kyle and Sam Lasseter; Laurie and James E. Maloney; Mickey and Mike Marvins; Mr. and Mrs. Alexander K. McLanahan; Adam Neese; Robertson-Finley Foundation; Becky Roof; Sue and Bob Schwartz; Pauline Solnik; and Christine and Jan Spin.
On View: March 12, 2021 | 12–5 pm
Houston Center for Photography
1441 West Alabama Street
Houston, 77006 TX
(713) 529-4755
Get directions