. . . Jonathan Gitelson, of Brattleboro, Vermont.
What is the Vermont Prize? It is a collaboration among representatives from four Vermont arts institutions: The Current in Stowe, the Hall Art Foundation in Reading, Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, and Burlington City Arts, along with one special guest curator, who review submissions from visual artists working and living in Vermont and award recognition and a $5000 prize to one artist each year.
Relatively new, its first award was given in 2022. Gitelson joins previous winners Will Kasso Condry (2022) of Brandon, Terry Ekasala (2023) of East Burke, and Sarah Amos (2024) of Enosburg Falls.
Gitelson’s latest photography project had an unsettling beginning:
“A primary landmark in my hometown of Mount Kisco, NY, is a statue featuring our namesake, “Chief Kisco.” The statue was erected in 1907 and soon became a central part of the town’s identity. The Chief’s image has appeared on municipal vehicles and uniforms and has been a source of regional folklore for generations.
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned that “Chief Kisco” was actually a fictional character and that the statue was one of an estimated 25 replicas that were created as civic statues and distributed throughout the United States. The statue that we called “Chief Kisco” was originally sold by the title, “Indian Chief No. 53.””
Denise Markonish, this years’s special guest curator, Martin Friedman Chief Curator at New York’s Madison Square Park and former Chief Curator at MASS MoCA, says of Gitelson’s work:
“ . . . Gitelson asks us to reconsider how local stories spread and, regardless of truth, become attached to monuments. He also points to the clumsy colonialist attempts at attribution in the United States, where one tribal leader can stand in for all. In the last few years, the reckoning with monuments across the country and the increasing complexity of democracy provide a platform for Gitelson’s work to remind us to always interrogate the world.”
Gitelson has worked in a variety of artistic mediums for over 20 years, including photography, artist books, video, installation, public art, works on paper, and web-based projects. In a written statement accompanying his Vermont Prize application, he said, “I create work that explores the wonder and the strangeness found in the seeming ordinariness of everyday life… In this political moment ripe with a nostalgic longing for a past that oftentimes never actually existed, I’m interested in how cultural mythologies persist and continue to impact our understanding of our national and regional identity and history.”
Upper Valley artists (who live and work in Vermont) may want to consider applying for next’s year’s prize. More information is available here. No submission fee required.
(Photo with permission of The Vermont Prize)
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.