Prior release Rackham celebration features photographer who chronicled Ground Zero

DATE: 7 p.m.
EVENT: A performance by actress Anna Deavere Smith in Rackham Auditorium at the University of Michigan has been cancelled due to illness. However, the event, part of a two-day Rediscover Rackham celebration, will occur—with a different speaker—at the same date, time and place. It is free and open to the public.

Replacing Smith will be Joel Meyerowitz, an award-winning photographer who has chronicled—in more than 7,000 images—the destruction and recovery at Ground Zero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. His talk will be illustrated with projections of those images. Twenty-eight photographs from the collection, in an exhibition entitled, "After Sept. 11: Images from Ground Zero," are traveling to more than 200 cities in 60 countries during the next few years.

Meyerowitz’s work has appeared in more than 150 exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world. He is a "street photographer" in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, although he works exclusively in color. Meyerowitz was instrumental in changing the attitude toward the use of color photography from one of resistance to nearly universal acceptance. His first book, " Cape Light," is considered a classic work of color photography and has sold more than 100,000 copies during its 20-year life.

From 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Rackham will open its doors to the public, providing an opportunity to see the bold colors and intricate details that have emerged during a four-year, $27 million restoration and renovation.

LOCATION: Rackham School of Graduate Studies, 915 E. Washington, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

PHOTO: A photograph of Meyerowitz is available online at http://www.umich.edu/news/Releases/2004/Mar04/img/Meyerowitz.jpg

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