Eric Gottesman is a photographic artist, teacher, and activist. Since 1999 he has been working in and around the Middle East and Africa, as well as in rural North America, collaborating with communities to produce photographs and videos that often challenge preexisting images and perceptions of a culture and/or place as well as the concept of singular artistic authorship.
Gottesman studied politics and economics at Duke University and, later, art at Bard College. In 2003, he was named one of the top 25 young American photographers in25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers. Gottesman has been the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, and grants including the Light Work Grant, a Fulbright Fellowship in Art, an Artadia award, an Aaron Siskind Fellowship, the apexart Franchise award, and grants from the Magnum Foundation, the Open Society Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Most recently his work has been exhibited at the Addison Gallery of American Art, the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and the Clark Gallery. In 2012 he was both an artist-in-residence at Amherst College and an Edward E. Elson artist-in-residence at the Addison Gallery of American Art. He will have a solo show at Hamiltonian Gallery in Fall 2013. His first collaborative monograph, Sudden Flowers, will be published by Fishbar in Spring 2014. He has taught at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Amherst College, the International Center for Photography, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and in collaborative workshops in Lebanon, Jordan and Ethiopia. Gottesman was exhibited under the VAN Exhibition Residency program at the Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT in 2011.