A REQUIEM: PHOTOGRAPHS OF AUSCHWITZ BY SUSAN MAY TELL
April 8-October 16

Susan May Tell, an award-winning photojournalist for the New York Post, traveled to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1998 to photograph the relics and abandoned property there, creating powerful and poetic images. Ten black-and-white photographs, each 4' x 6', will be featured in this installation, which is designed as a meditation on decay and memory.

Tell, whose work has appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek and in other major publications worldwide, began her career in photojournalism in 1983 as a freelance photographer for The New York Times. As a founding member of Saba Press Photos, she worked for the agency first from Cairo, then from Paris.

"In Auschwitz, I felt the presence of its ghosts guiding me, guiding my camera, and was then, and continue to be now, moved to share the tragedy of this place through the images I saw through my lens," Tell explains.

The work shows the influences of such poets as William Carlos Williams and Stanley Kunitz and such photographers as André Kertész, Walker Evans, and Roy DeCarava. Tell considers her Auschwitz photographs to be poetic images that profoundly illustrate what she strives for in her work – that neither form nor content should overwhelm the other, and that the tension evident in the photographs cannot be resolved.

The photographer elaborates: "Equally important to my artistic vision is my commitment to Auschwitz as a meditation on decay and memory. Like other sacred grounds that have been neglected and are decaying, Auschwitz today is disappearing. The loss of its spiritual presence raises major questions about how places of this kind, and others such as the World Trade Center, should be commemorated.

" The photographs of Auschwitz share a common perspective with all peoples who have experienced violence and loss," Tell continues. "I created this exhibition to provide a visceral experience: for visitors to feel the presence of unspeakable horror, to convey the ever-present pathos of desolation, and to give a real sense of the large scale of this death camp. My intention is to touch a respondent chord in a diverse and wide group of nationalities, religions, and cultures. In turn, these photographs of Auschwitz will create a dialogue about killing fields the world over and the universal problems of hate and evil."

This will mark Susan May Tell's second exhibition at the Museum of Art/Fort Lauderdale. Eighteen of her photographs were recently on view as part of Diana: A Celebration. Those photographs were made in England during the weeks immediately following Diana's death, capturing the nation mourning its lost princess, and appeared at the Museum under the heading A Nation Mourns Its Princess.

This exhibition is made possible by supporters of the Exhibition Fund.