Anthony Marchetti’s photographic exhibit, Paul, showing now thru October 17
Anthony Marchetti, a Minneapolis photographer, has his photographic exhibit, Paul, showing now through Monday, October 17, 2022, at Gallery 120. Art shows and exhibitions are hosted at Gallery 120’s brick-and-mortar location in the atrium of the Fine Arts building on the Inver Hills Community College campus in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. You can also visit Gallery 120 online, where Paul is also on exhibit.
Anthony completed a B.A. at Gustavus Adolphus College and an M.F.A. at the University of Minnesota. Currently, he is a full-time faculty member at Anoka-Ramsey Community College.
A six‐time Minnesota State Arts Board recipient, two‐time Bush Fellowship finalist, and a McKnight fellow in 2007 and 2013, Anthony has had his work exhibited regionally and nationally, including:
Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum
Minnesota Museum of American Art
Rochester Center for the Arts
Vermont Center for Photography
Momenta Art, Brooklyn, New York
Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco
Casa del Tunel, Tijuana, Mexico
Anthony’s work is in the permanent collection of the Weisman Art Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gustavus Adolphus College, and the Hungarian Multicultural Center.
In 2016, Anthony was a Fulbright Scholar in Budapest, Hungary, where he taught at the Moholy‐Nagy University of Art and Design and continued work on his current project that explores his maternal grandmother’s flight from Europe following World War II.
In March 1945, my maternal grandmother and her family fled Hungary as Russian armies advanced from the east. Over several months, they traveled through Austria to Germany, eventually settling in a displaced-persons camp in Munich. Their story came to me in pieces due to inconsistencies of memory and my grandmother’s reluctance to discuss her journey.
In the camp, my grandmother met and became engaged to a Hungarian man named Paul. When sponsorship to the U.S. opened, my grandmother left with her family, certain her fiancé would follow. During transatlantic passage, my grandmother was ill with symptoms of early pregnancy, ultimately leading to my mother’s birth. My grandmother’s fiancé never came to America nor did they meet again.
This work is an attempt to visualize and reconstruct a past and a world that no longer exists except in relatively few place markers, carried objects, and memories. In my re-imagining of this refugee narrative, photographs of places my grandmother passed through as she fled Russian-controlled Hungary provide visual context for the story.
Yet, since many facts are missing, fictive elements are needed to complete the story. This becomes especially necessary when focusing on my missing grandfather, Paul. All that remains of Paul are three small photographs and scant details from refugee documents obtained from organizations assisting in searches for missing relatives.
In place of fact, portraits and still-life act as meditations about this missing person. In this way, photography, while maintaining relationship to truth, also creates narrative where gaps exist.
Learn more about Anthony Marchetti’s exhibition, Paul, at Gallery 120 by contacting:
