Diane Rosenstein is pleased to announce My Shot: Portraits From Hamilton, an exhibition of photographs by New York-based artist Josh Lehrer. This exhibition coincides with the Los Angeles premiere of “Hamilton: An American Musical”, opening on Wednesday, August 16th at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. For My Shot, Lehrer captured portraits of the original Hamilton cast using antique cameras and lenses, then produced silver gelatin prints to bring a richness and timeless beauty to the images. All in an effort to echo what “Hamilton: An American Musical” brilliantly achieves in enlivening our own history in a way that makes it so relevant and present for us today.
“Hamilton” is a cast of revolutionaries. Night after night, this band of young rebels raises their voices to the darkness in an inspiring uprising of song and spirit. They are at once our history and our future, inciting rebellion and leading the way to change. Like the revolutionaries who embraced Alexander Hamilton’s vision for a new America, the remarkable actors in these photographs embraced Lin-Manuel Miranda’s vision for a new American musical.
A portion of sales from this exhibition will benefit The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. Josh Lehrer (USA, b.1963) studied photography at Boston University’s School for the Arts (BFA, 1985) and at the International Center of Photography (ICP), in New York City (2005). Lehrer’s photographs have been exhibited at Robert Miller Gallery (NYC), the Baltimore Museum of Art (2015), the Jewish Museum of Florida (2015), and the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art (2013), as well as on billboards and subway stations. Whether reflecting the chaos of homelessness, celebrity, propulsive success or projected sentiment, Lehrer’s desire to capture the individual, their unique survival strengths, and the sudden discovery of calm in the center of personal storms drives his work. The artist was born in Boston, Massachusetts and currently lives and works in New York City.
Chirla was founded in 1986. Chirla is a California leader with national impact made of diverse immigrant families and individuals who act as agents of social change to achieve a world with freedom of mobility, full human rights, and true participatory democracy. Chirla's mission is to achieve a just society fully inclusive of immigrants. Chirla organizes and serves individuals, institutions and coalitions to build power, transform public opinion, and change policies to achieve full human, civil and labor rights. Guided by the power, love, and vision of our community, Chirla embraces and drives progressive social change. Chirla was formed in response to the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 which made hiring undocumented workers illegal, thus creating a situation ripe for worker exploitation and abuse which have increased since that time.