Anthony Nowack
I’m a photographer and conceptual artist from Pottstown, PA. My work ranges from photographing presidents and rockstars, to creating elaborate and thought provoking conceptual art photography. I’ve also been exploring still life photography through the language of flowers. Flowers have always been very important symbolically to all human societies. Studying their role in shaping our stories and imagery has been invaluable in influencing my work since. In addition to my own work, I am the co-owner and chief creative force behind Anno Artem Gallery.
Justice
This work was inspired by the unmarked graves of indigenous children discovered on the grounds of the former Canadian “Indian Schools”. Children who were kidnapped from their families by the state and handed over to schools run by the Catholic Church who’s mission was to “Kill the Indian, save the man.” Exactly how many children died in these facilities is still unknown.
Echibechias traditionally are a flower used to represent justice so I planted them surrounding the Mary in (toilet) grotto to depict the memory of the children now resurrected and looking for their justice.
Print #1 was hung on the door of the Sacred Heart Church in Phoenixville, PA on the morning of Indigenous Peoples Day in 2023 with a dedication that read: “A gift in honor of the 150,000+ children of the Canadian Residential Schools and 10,000+ of the Carlile Indian School”
Giclee Photographic Print
#3 in Limited Edition Of 3
Gun Fetish
In 1971, Andy Warhol created the cover for the Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers” album. The Rolling Stones were the pioneers of toxic masculinity in rock and roll in the sixties with songs like “Under My Thumb”, “Satisfaction”, and “Stray Cat Blues”. To embody this, Warhol photographed one of his male models with his erection bulging through his tight jeans.
Today, male fragility has been augmented by the gun industry, which tells men they don’t have to feel afraid or impotent if they own enough guns. The proliferation of which has contributed to ~45,000 deaths per year in the US.
So I decided to reimagine the album for the modern era. Complete front and back covers with album labels.
Hand made by the artist and numbered.
Record Album
One Small Seed
The Mustard Seed is a symbol of how the smallest of deeds can have immense consequences. All of the world’s major faith traditions have parables that utilize this symbol.
I though it an fitting message for this exhibit and for this time. Your acts of resistance, no matter how seemingly small, are what grow to heal the world.
Mustard Seed on Moab Entrada Rag Bright paper
People Like You
My father was a carpenter, an alcoholic and drug addict. Like many blue collar workers of his generation, betrayed by the failure of hippie ideals. He fell victim to the lure of right-wing media that told him that he wasn’t to blame for not being successful. It was immigrants, minority groups, homosexuals. Everyone with less power than him were holding him down. This quote is something he said to me long before Trump came to power. But it was a sign of what was to come as more and more people looked for someone to blame.
Layered Giclee Photographic Prints
Artist: Anthony Nowack
My father was a carpenter,an alcoholic and drug addict. Like many blue collar workers of his generation, betrayed by the failure of hippie ideals. He fell victim to the lure of right-wing media that told him that he wasn’t to blame for not being successful. It was immigrants, minority groups, homosexuals. Everyone with less power than him were holding him down. This quote is something he said to me long before Trump came to power. But it was a sign of what was to come as more and more people looked for someone to blame.
The Red Wardrobe
A collaboration between Anthony Nowack and Kenzie De, The Red Wardrobe is a clothing rack with four woman's outfits that tell stories of their crisis in their lives because of laws restricting reproductive freedom.
I thought we were only creating a work about reproductive rights, but we discovered we also created a statement about privacy and how we view a woman's personal space. Your level of interaction with the work is solely dependent on your comfort with these concepts.
Installation Work
Buddy Guy
"Contrary to what some people believe, the blues is not “slave music.” Although it was cultivated by the descendants of slaves, the blues was the expression of freed African Americans. The Great Migration directly influenced the blues’ many evolutions. As Black people moved from the South to northern cities, the music reflected the new urban terrain in which the people set up communities...
The beginnings of the blues can be traced to the late 1860s, arguably the most vicious and violent period in the United States. Vigilante justice was at an all-time high, and by 1889, the lynching of African Americans surged dramatically. The bluesman and blueswoman emerged in this difficult period, along with the stories of folk heroes translated to song and the new venues in which the music would be performed. The blues did not speak of the life of the enslaved but of the experiences of freed men and women during the periods of Reconstruction and Jim Crow. It spoke of cotton bales/gins, boll weevil, juke houses, and sharecropping."
Lamont Pearley, Sr
African-American Intellectual History Society
aaihs.org
Photography
Un-Augural
$500
People Like You
My father was a carpenter,an alcoholic and drug addict. Like many blue collar workers of his generation, betrayed by the failure of hippie ideals. He fell victim to the lure of right-wing media that told him that he wasn’t to blame for not being successful. It was immigrants, minority groups, homosexuals. Everyone with less power than him were holding him down. This quote is something he said to me long before Trump came to power. But it was a sign of what was to come as more and more people looked for someone to blame.
$1,000
RIOT!
The Jan 6th 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building made me feel something I don’t think I had experienced before. Sympathy for police officers.
This work embodies the spirit of the Third Wave Romantic movement to me. Empathy, Humanity, Determination.
Empathy for those tricked into believing THEY were the patriots. Humanity of the divisions that created this tragedy. Determination to never let it happen again.
$1,000/mo
Who Watches The Watchmen?
Across the parking lot, the building you see houses the Pottstown Police Department. Body cameras and citizens with cell phones have been a focus of police accountability, but lately police departments have been using citizens doorbell cameras to monitor neighborhoods and gather evidence. In a world of constant video surveilance, who watches?
The quote you see above is in the original Latin from the Roman poet Juvenal.