Again, Again

Again, Again
Ian Lewandowski
June 7-August 15, 2024
Opening Reception: June 7, 6-9pm, artist present
Free and open to the public

Aurora PhotoCenter, Efroymson Gallery
1125 Brookside Avenue, Suite C9, Indianapolis

In June 2023, artist Ian Lewandowski spent two weeks photographing in Indianapolis for an Aurora PhotoCenter Project Residency. Lewandowski focused on making large-format portraits of queer Hoosiers, in June during Indy Pride, in a continuation of his long-term work imaging queer Midwesterners, notably in his series My Man Mitch.

The exhibition Again, Again is a celebration of Indy Pride and Lewandowski’s incredibly productive residency. Each of the images featured in the exhibition draws from the artist’s rich experience in our community. With the essential help of local friends old and new, Lewandowski met scores of subjects and captured many insightful portraits of Pride. Ben Bascom, teacher and scholar of early and nineteenth-century American literature and LGBTQ studies, will provide a contextual essay to accompany the exhibition.

Before his arrival in Indianapolis for the residency in Indianapolis, Lewandowski wrote that he hoped to, “. . . make something sensitive to this place, nuanced and ‘from within’. I do not want to make something sensational. Rather than exploit the identity of those who agree to sit for a portrait, I want to approach this with the same empathy and genuine curiosity I bring to any portrait I make.”

Ian Lewandowski is a photographer from Northwest Indiana. His first solo exhibition, Community Board, was exhibited at The Java Project in Brooklyn in 2019. The Ice Palace Is Gone, his body of large-format color portraits made from 2018-19, was published as his first monograph by Magic Hour Press (Montréal) in 2021. My Man Mitch, his body of photographs and photo-based material native to his home state of Indiana, was published by Kult Books (Stockholm) in 2022. He teaches undergraduate and continuing education courses in photography at The New School and Gowanus Darkroom and manages and prints the photo work of Kenny Gardner (1913-2002). He lives in Brooklyn with his husband, Anthony, and their dog named Seneca.

Annual operating support for Aurora PhotoCenter provided by the City of Indianapolis through the Indy Arts Council. Additional support provided by the Efroymson Family Fund.