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Charles Peterson’s Nirvana: On Photography and Performance Lecture and Book Signing

January 18 @ 1:00 pm

Join us for an exclusive lecture and book signing featuring local photographer Charles Peterson. His iconic photographs capture the raw energy and spirit of the Seattle music scene in the late 80s and 90s. Charles will take you behind the lens and into the dark room as he shares the stories behind his images.  

After the lecture, Charles will sign copies of Charles Peterson’s Nirvana [Minor Matters, 2024] and exhibition posters. Don’t miss the opportunity to meet the artist and take home a signed copy of the book.  

Reserve your spot today! The Charles Peterson Nirvana book will be available for purchase in the TAM store 

Tickets are $15 for members, $35 for non-members if registering online, and $38 if purchased the day of (includes the price of admission).

Register Now>>>

 


The Image and The Object: An Introduction with Michelle Dunn Marsh

February 1 @ 1:00 pm

Charles Peterson's Nirvana: On Photography and Performance
Image of Michelle Dunn Marsh, ©️ copyright and courtesy Sylvia Plachy, 2012.

Join Michelle Dunn Marsh, curator of Charles Peterson’s Nirvana and co-founder of Minor Matters, for the first of a two-part series on photography as an artform. Drawing from her three-decade career working with American photographers nationally on publications, exhibitions, and public programs, Michelle will highlight key practitioners of the twentieth and twenty-first century, the “why” behind choosing regional photographers published through Minor Matters, and discuss her abiding love for prints.

Michelle will present the second lecture in this series on February 8th at 1:00pm in the TAM Event Space.
Tickets are free for members, $15 for non-members.

 

Register Now>>>

 


Reading Photographs with Michelle Dunn Marsh

February 8 @ 1:00 pm

Join Michelle Dunn Marsh, curator of Charles Peterson’s Nirvana and co-founder of Minor Matters, for the second lecture in this two-part series. This talk will focus on visual literacy and specifically learning to read photographs. Part photo history, part personal history, part brain science, this interactive discussion may change how you perceive the world around you.

Tickets are free for members, $15 for non-members.

Register Now>>>


Still/Life: Photography in the Cinematic Imagination (TAM Cinema)

February 13 @ 6:00 pm

TAM Cinema is a moving image series exploring the interrelation of photography and cinema, each in turn operating as an apparatus of memory and index of experience. Works in this series, Still/Life, form a conceptual reflection on the space opened up between photography and performance iterated in Charles Peterson’s Nirvana. Still / Life explores a certain tension across the related mediums’ claims to real and imaginary realms, to empirical and subjective states, from historic to ecstatic truths. Image-making is presented in varying, and often seemingly opposing, forms: as both inference and reference, instance and eternity. 

 Curated by David Dinnell and Jay Kuehner 

TAM Cinema is a free event, but donations are welcome.


About Charles Peterson’s Nirvana: On Photography and Performance
This exhibition highlights the dynamic energy of Peterson’s black-and-white photographs, which have become synonymous with the sounds, styles, movement, and attitude known as Grunge. The exhibition, based on a book of the same name, expands beyond Peterson’s iconic images seen in album art, books, and magazines for decades. Over a five-year photo edit, Peterson focused on the photographs, many never before printed, that stimulated visceral memories of live performances. In addition to Peterson’s gelatin-silver and pigment prints, the exhibition will include black-and-white photographs and video by six distinct artists (including Barbara Morgan, Sylvia Plachy, Nicholas Galanin, and Peterson’s photography professor, Paul Berger, among others) to complicate and complement Peterson’s work. The exhibition has been created by Tacoma Art Museum in collaboration with Seattle-based publishing platform Minor Matters and is curated by Michelle Dunn Marsh.