Summer exhibition ‘Worship + Work’ announced for Verostko Center at St. Vincent
The Verostko Center for the Arts in at Saint Vincent College has opened the exhibit “Worship + Work,” running through Aug. 19.
The exhibit features photographs centered on Benedictine life by Gordon Parks and Pittsburgh-based artist Dominic McDuffie. It includes photographs Parks created for Life magazine in 1955 that document the monks of Saint Benedict’s Abbey in Atchison, Kansas, and 30 rarely-shown photos that have been loaned by the monks of Saint Benedict’s for the exhibit.
“Current exhibitions of Parks’ work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh indicate that his images hold deep resonance with our wider contemporary moment,” said Andrew Julo, director of the Verostko Center and curator of the exhibit. “This collection of photos, while a lesser-known body of work within Parks’ career, is ripe for reconsideration particularly given the monastic context of Saint Vincent.”
Inspired by Parks’ work, the Verostko Center, in coordination with Saint Vincent Archabbey, commissioned Pittsburgh-based photographer Dominick McDuffie to create a series documenting the Saint Vincent monastic community during spring 2022 to visually narrate aspects of life for contemporary Benedictines.
Both projects will be on view at the center, located on the second floor of the Dale P. Latimer Library on St. Vincent’s Latrobe campus. Summer hours are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and by appointment.
Arrangements to visit outside of those hours can be made by emailing verostkocenter@stvincent.edu.