Stacy Kranitz

Tracey Morgan Gallery is pleased to present Fulcrum of Malice, an exhibition of photographs from Stacy Kranitz. The exhibition will be in the in the project gallery, and will hang alongside an exhibition of works from fellow gallery artist Kirsten Stolle. A reception for the artist will be held on Friday, December 1st, from 6-8 p.m. Stacy Kranitz’s work explores history, representation and otherness within the documentary tradition. She uses photography to open up a narrative that confronts our understanding of culture; one poised between notions of what is right and what is wrong. Kranitz is interested in carving out a path that explores the subjective relationship to the people she photographs resulting in images that are meant to implicate the photographer as well as the viewer. The work in this exhibition offers an intimate record of marginal, struggles for presence along the chemical corridor known as Cancer Alley in Louisiana. Cancer Alley is a 150-mile, pollution-ridden industrial corridor along the Mississippi River, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It is believed that this area is home to the largest concentration of refineries and petrochemical plants in the nation. Towns along the Mississippi have seen dramatic rises in cancer, birth defects, asthma, stillbirths, miscarriages, neurological diseases and other serious health aliments. The communities affected by the pollution are predominately African American, the poor, and minorities. Historically, these groups suffer most from environmental exposure to hazardous substances. Parts of this region have become so polluted that companies have been forced to buy entire towns and bulldoze them-completely wiping them off the map. The story of Cancer Alley is the story of systemic racism that can be traced directly back to the failure of reparations after the American Civil War and the more recent fight for civil rights. It is a story of our collective complicity in the racial divide through consumption of petroleum and plastics. Born in Kentucky, she studied at The University of California and New York University. Her work is a part of the collection at Museum of Fine Art, Houston as well as The Do Good Fund, Southern Photography Initiative. Her work has been the subject of three monographs and she has been published extensively in print magazines such as Harpers, The New York Times and Mother Jones, among others. In 2015 she was Time Magazine’s Instagram Photographer of the Year, and in 2017 she received the Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography. This work was produced with contributions from First Look Media and the Bureau of Change.