The Safety Net: Stacy Kranitz and Chris Verene
April 3 - May 10
“New York, NY (opens April 3, 2025) – Psychic Readings* is pleased to announce “The
Safety Net,” a two-person exhibition that examines life in today’s American small towns,
through the work of documentary photographers Stacy Kranitz and Chris Verene. The
exhibit highlights the resilience of human spirit and the importance of mutual aid. It
features a selection of new works and images from throughout the photographers’
careers. The exhibition will open at Psychic Readings* gallery at 629 E 6th Street New
York, NY 10009 on Thursday, April 3, 2025, and will run through May 10, 2025.
Kranitz and Verene focus on a unique, sensitive, and intensely personal approach to the
documentary tradition. They have dedicated their careers to photographing communities
which are often overlooked and underserved. Verene has been photographing his family
and friends in the small midwestern town of Galesburg, Illinois since the late 1980s, while
Kranitz has documented communities in the Appalachian region for the past fifteen years.
These communities share similar situations thousands of miles apart. The artists show us
that the government’s social safety net doesn’t work for people living near the poverty line.
Stacy Krantiz explains, “On paper, there are resources available through government
programs, but in reality, they are nearly impossible to access. I find this is the biggest
disconnect for people. If you have never needed these resources, you do not understand
how difficult they are to obtain and keep.”
Kravitz and Verene both work in communities where the safety net does not provide
accessible and adequate resources. Both see declining rural health care (rural hospital
closures, maternity care deserts) the rise in rural homelessness and the lack of economic
opportunity as significant factors in declining quality of life. Verene writes, “The local
government condemned my friend’s home, arrested the occupants for trespassing when
they tried to return, then bulldozed houses they deemed to be where people used drugs.
Now, those people have no where to live and the situation is far worse.”
The exhibition’s curator, Ani Cordero, has long worked in grassroots organizing, and aims
to highlight the intersection of art and activism with this project. Cordero notes the artists’
commitment to harm reduction and their active encouragement of positive change from
within the community through their work.
Stacy Kranitz and Chris Verene are both recent Guggenheim Fellows, and both have
monographs including these topics published by the prestigious Twin Palms Press.
About Stacy Kranitz: Stacy Kranitz is an American photographer born in Kentucky and
currently lives in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee. She has received
numerous awards including the Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography and a
Center for Documentation Fellowship. She recently collaborated with ProPublica on a
project about abortion rights in Tennessee. Her work is included in public collections
including The Harvard Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, and The Duke
University Archive of Documentary Arts. Krantiz’ work has been featured in publications
including The Atlantic, Bomb Magazine, The New York Times, Time Magazine and The
Washington Post.
About Chris Verene: Chris Verene, born in DeKalb, Illinois in 1969, began photographing
his father’s small hometown of Galesburg in 1987. For nearly four decades, he has
continued intensively photographing the stories of his family members, friends, and their
community in the same area. Verene is currently working on the third book in his series.
Verene’s work is in numerous museum collections including The Met, The Whitney, The
Jewish Museum, The Getty, and SFMoMA, and has been featured in many major art
publications, including ArtForum, Art In America, The New York Times, Frieze, and Parkett.
About Ani Cordero: Ani Cordero is a Puerto Rican singer, composer, activist, and co-
founder of Puerto Rican Independent Musicians and Artists (PRIMA), which has provided
support in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane María. She has been featured on
Democracy Now, All Things Considered, and profiled in The New Yorker. Cordero is the director of Chris Verene’s ongoing performance work, The Self-Esteem Salon®, is Verene’s long-time artistic collaborator and partner. Cordero worked with the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA). Cordero is partnered with Action Lab, a strategy
center for social movements that sparks political and personal liberation.
Psychic Readings* is an artist-run gallery in the East Village neighborhood of New York City, in full time operation since 2021.”