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Artist/Maker
Rhona Bitner
(American, born 1960)
Date1994
MediumFujiflex print
DimensionsImage: 8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm)
Frame: 9 × 11 × 1 1/4 in. (22.9 × 27.9 × 3.2 cm)
Credit LineRuth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY.
Object number2024.7.4
Not on view
Description“Circus” (1991–2001) marks the earliest series featured in Resound. Inspired by images Bitner made while attending a matinee of the expansive three-ring Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the hundreds of photographs that followed were the result of photographing seventy-six live performances by forty-six traveling circus companies over the course of a decade. In addition to the colors and spectacle of the performance, Bitner was drawn to how the circus mirrors real life. “We use the language of the circus to describe the everyday outside the tent—we jump through hoops, juggle home and work, hang by a thread.” Bitner photographed circuses in New York and throughout Europe, building on the long-established informal network between troupes to gain access. This series of photographs, made at the end of the twentieth century, unwittingly anticipated the decline of the circus as a popular form of entertainment in the US. Ringling Bros., the largest American circus, operated for nearly a century before folding in 2017 and the not-for-profit Big Apple Circus closed in 2016. In Europe, this artform and its traditions continue to thrive.
Collections
Additional Details
Signature
Verso, on adhesive label (Sharpie): "© RHONA BITNER 1994 / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED / 94114CNAC / FROM CIRCUS 4/5"
Rhona Bitner
Date: 2000
Medium: Fujiflex print
Object number: 2024.7.3
Rhona Bitner
Date: 2000
Medium: Cibachrome print
Object number: 2024.7.2
Rhona Bitner
Date: 1999
Medium: Cibachrome print
Object number: 2024.7.5
Rhona Bitner
Date: October 29, 2008 (printed 2013)
Medium: Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum
Object number: 2014.3.1
Rhona Bitner
Date: 2022
Medium: Archival pigment print
Object number: 2024.7.1
Rhona Bitner
Date: October 28, 2008, printed 2013
Medium: Chromogenic print, mounted on aluminum
Object number: 2014.3.2
Rhona Bitner
Date: 2020
Medium: Silver gelatin prints
Object number: 2024.7.9.1-84a
Carrie Mae Weems
Date: 1990 (printed 2010)
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 2011.5