Detail from one of David Freund's collection of home-made visual albums from the 19th and early 20th Century

An Illustrated Lecture with Collector David Freund
Date: Thursday, June 23
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Part of the Out of the Cabinet: Tales of Strange Objects and the People Who Love Them Series, presented by Morbid Anatomy and Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence Evan Michelson

Home-Made Visual Albums were incredibly popular productions between the the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century; these scrap books contained artful arrangements of a wide range of materials, from inventive collages to seaweed compositions to artistically arranged feathers to advertising fragments to human hair to basically anything else that could be glued down. More than simply collections or scrap books, these albums can also be seen as diaries, and project a sense of their absent makers through imaginative content, arresting design, obsession, and, above all, narrative.

Collector and artist David Freund has been collecting-and classifying, into over 40 categories of his own invention- these enigmatic and fascinating artifacts over the last 30 years. Tonight, join Mr. Freund as be discusses the history and taxonomy of these artifacts and presents a number of exquisite examples from his collection for your delight and perusal.

David Freund earned his MFA from the Visual Studies Workshop after a BA in Theater at UC Davis. Professor Emeritus of Photography at Ramapo College of New Jersey, he chaired its Visual Arts for twenty years. He also taught at Pratt and was a Dayton-Hudson Distinguished Visiting Artist at Carleton College. His NEA photographs showed gas station environments nationwide. Other grants included New York’s CAPS program and NYC’s Institute for Art and Urban Resources. During a Light Works residency Freund curated a regional photo post card exhibition, Penny Publishing. Exhibitions include Light Gallery and Eastman House. Among collections with his work are MOMA, the Corcoran, MFA Houston, and the Bibliotheque Nationale.