It is with deep
sadness that I write that Robert Sobieszek, former senior curator of
photography at the George Eastman House, died July 15, at age 62. Sobieszek
left Rochester in 1990 to head the photography collection at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art. It was a short time after his arrival in Los Angeles that
I had the great fortune to actually meet the man.
I was fresh out of
graduate school and had just completed a collaborative photographic project
with one of my professors. Robert came to the opening in Santa Monica. He
already knew my professor — no doubt because he was the one who had a hand in
purchasing several of her photographs for the GEH collection — and
immediately came over to us.
Sobieszek talked to me
at length about the collaborative piece and about my own work. He treated me as
someone much further along in the field than I was. His words were encouraging
and thought provoking.
In retrospect, it
makes perfect sense that this was the man who in 1993 curated the seemingly
unusual Robert Smithson: Photo Works.
It was an exhibition that examined the photographs of an artist increasingly
interested in the environment and one who created “non-sites,” works of
photographs and related objects introduced into the otherwise pristine space of
the gallery.
I suppose if you could
sum up life in a few short words, I’d have to say that Robert Sobieszek
possessed a powerful creative vision as well as the conviction to uphold it.
The art world has lost a veritable giant. He will be truly missed.
— Alex Miokovic
This article appears in Jul 27 – Aug 2, 2005.
