Newport’s Redwood Library & Athenaeum has been open since 1750, so it’s probably not the first place you’d think to go looking for contemporary art. The library’s trying to change that, though, with curator Leora Maltz-Leca spearheading a new Contemporary Arts Initiative and Artist-in-Residence program. First up: Boston photographer Kevin Dacey, who has wasted no time producing Outside/In, a series of photos that were taken on site at the library. The show includes shelves of library books shot from the lawn, so the windows reflect verdant Bellevue Avenue. More interesting are the blown-up photographs of book spines, reduced to just the year of publication. (It reminds me in a good way of Mickey Smith, my favorite library-centered photographer.)
Kevin Dacey
