Opening Night for BEATITUDE: The Beat Attitude Photographs by Joey Tranchina

Exhibition of Never-Before-Seen Portraits of Beat Generation Icons Kicks Off Photo Centre’s 35th Anniversary.

This stunning exhibition of over 70 images and commanding enlargements includes iconic, culture-bending poets, activists, and artists of the Beat Generation, including Allen Ginsberg, Lenore Kandel, Kenneth Rexroth, and more.

This collection of images taken in the 1960s and ’70s by little-known poet/ photographer/activist Joey Tranchina were stored away for nearly 50 years before being discovered by his son in 2018 and later shared with critic and art historian Dr. Anthony Bannon and art consultant and producer Dolores Lusitana, who will discuss the exhibition at a special presentation at the Palm Beach Central Library on October 21.

BEATITUDE captures a cross-generational array of multi-cultural, race and gender diverse artists linked by a “Beat” aesthetic who founded an early social movement that championed humanity over economy, ecology over industry, and equal rights for women and men regardless of race, social status, or sexual orientation.

BEATITUDE: The Beat Attitude, a book of Joey Tranchina’s photographs, with an essay by Bannon and introduction by American Book Award winning poet Ed Sanders, is forthcoming internationally from Steidl Verlag.

“Tranchina’s work must be the most extensive pictorial assembly of Beat related artists and thinkers depicted by a single photographer,” says Dr. Bannon, the author of 49 books and emeritus director (1996-2012) of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY. “The photographs, rendered in dramatic black and white, include masterful representations of the heroes recognized in their time by Nobel and Pulitzer awards, Academy and Obie prizes for film and theater, and appointments by both the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and the American Society of Arts and Letters. Here are the poets laureate named by states and nations and the recipients of the highest praise granted internationally through university doctorates.”

“These were the international thought leaders,” adds Lusitana, who organized the archive for exhibition and publication and served as the artist’s project director. “Joey Tranchina cast a wide net in his own appreciation and participation in the global change of culture. Time has supported his selections, including Nobel Prize winning Czeslaw Milosz; the great Russian poets whose readings came to fill a sports stadium, namely Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesensky; and Margaret Atwood, an early contributor to Beat publications in Canada.”

“The Palm Beach Photographic Centre’s 35 years of service in Florida – and the nation – is nicely summarized by BEATITUDE, for ours has definitely been a Beat Attitude, always ready for change, proceeding with a vision to participate in a spirit of excellence and achievement,” says NeJame. “This show is a perfect way to begin our 35th anniversary celebration—and in conjunction with this exhibition we will be presenting a series of lectures, conversations and live presentations by artists, scholars, cultural historians, and special guests, who participated in the Beat revolution.

The Palm Beach Photographic will host a FREE opening reception on Friday, October 20, from 6 to 8 pm.

The Photo Centre is located at the downtown City Center municipal complex at 415 Clematis Street in downtown West Palm Beach. Hours are 10 am to 6 pm Monday through Thursday, and 10 am to 5 pm Friday and Saturday. For more information, please call 561.253.2600 or visit www.workshop.org or www.fotofusion.org.

 The Palm Beach Photographic Centre is a non-profit organization dedicated to enriching life through the photographic arts. All donations are greatly appreciated at www.workshop.org/contrib.