Formerly known as Photographers’ Quarterly, and even earlier as Center Quarterly, PQ was initially conceived by Woodstock Center for Photography founders Michael Feinberg and Howard Greenberg as a black-and-white foldout brochure meant to broaden the fledgling art organization’s efforts to champion photography as a fine art form beyond the borders of Woodstock.

Now, 31 years and 99 issues later, the full-color publication will be the focus of an ambitious new exhibit featuring its five-score issue covers in PQ:100, alongside many of the photography, films, videos, and photo-based installations that have been covered in its pages. The show opens this coming Saturday, March 13, with a reception 5 p.m.-7 p.m., and will include a special party to celebrate the actual 100th issue of the magazine late in April.

“This exhibit provides a unique opportunity for the public to experience nearly all of the original works featured on the covers of PQ, as well as the chance to grasp the shifts, trends, and ideas that have been explored throughout photography over the past 30 plus years,” says CPW Executive Director Ariel Shanberg of the new show, which has helped shape not only a new look at the organization’s history, but the many changes that have enveloped photography in the last three decades. “The exhibition’s installation design will emphasize a dialogue by having CPW’s publication displayed on running reading shelves throughout the gallery, along with the artworks used to illustrate its covers, which will be installed salon-style above the actual issues, giving visitors a unique chance to re-engage simultaneously with the broad spectrum of ideas that have been published in the issues and on the covers of the first 100 PQs.”

That includes a first-time-only chance to see what was captured only in black and white for the publication’s first 88 issues, as well as an opportunity for audiences, and PQ readers, to experience the contrast “between engaging art objects and art as re-presented, re-produced, and re-interpreted in print form.”

“When producing a publication, choices have to be made. Images are cropped. Textures and sheens are democratized. Sense of scale and dimension is lost,” Shanberg added. “As an independent publication, the strength of PQ has always been the rich diversity of voices which have contributed to its pages. Guest editors, essayists, interviewers, and contributors to PQ have ensured that the dialogue on and through photography serves to forward the medium and the ideas explored through it forward in ways that mainstream photography publications, often beholden to advertisers and profit margins, cannot be.”

In the new show, Shanberg and the current crew at CPW is giving a major shout-out to the publication’s, and organization’s, earlier key players, including Kathleen Kenyon, who edited the publication from 1982 to 2003.

Among the photographic artists being featured in this omnibus of an exhibit will be such well-known international and regional names as Shelby Lee Adams, Eugene Atget,

Dawoud Bey, Debbie Fleming Caffery, Keith Carter, Joseph Cornell, Bruce Davidson, Mike Disfarmer, Will Faller, Michael Feinberg, Ralph Gibson, Horst P. Horst, Kevin Hyde, Graciela Iturbide, Colleen Kenyon, John Kleinhans, Barbara Kruger, Gay Leonhardt, Eric Lindbloom, Mary Ellen Mark, Dan McCormack, Sheila Metzner, Sarah Morthland, Patrick Nagatani and Andree Tracey, Timothy O’Sullivan, Linda Post. Michael Prince, Lilo Raymond, Martha Rosler, Cindy Sherman, Aaron Siskind, Andrea Barrist Stern, Robert Toedter, Neil Trager, Edward Weston, Susan Wides and Joel Peter Witkin.

Special events over the length of the show, up through May, include a Friday, April 23 Release Party for PQ issue #100, and  a “PQ: Uncovered” one-day symposium featuring panel talks and speakers on Saturday, April 24. ++

PQ:100 opens with a reception this Saturday, March 13, from 5 p.m.-7 p.m.

The Center for Photography at Woodstock is located at 59 Tinker Street in Woodstock. For further information call 679-9957 or visit www.cpw.org.