Melissa Shook: Freedom to Create
Stevenson Library, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
September 18 – December 19, 2025
Curated by Fiona Laugharn
Melissa Shook: Freedom to Create explored the celebrated photographer's formative relationship with Bard College, where she studied from 1959 to 1961, and the development of her artistic practice over the following decades. Drawing on archival materials donated to Bard by the artist's daughter, Krissy Shook, the exhibition brought together photographs, correspondence, journals, artist books, ceramics, and personal ephemera.
Through these materials, the exhibition examined Shook's lifelong engagement with daily observation, self-representation, and personal identity, offering an intimate portrait of the artist beyond her celebrated photographic series Daily Self-Portraits 1972–1973 and Wellfleet (1973).
Installation photos by Robin Kaiküll.
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