The Long Lives We Carry

The Long Lives We Carry brings together the work of American photojournalist Gordon Baer (1940–2019) and Slovak photographer Jano Rečo (b. 1948) in a poignant study of aging, care, and the fragile dignity of human life at its end. Baer, a longtime Cincinnati-based photographer, was known for his sensitive documentation of those often overlooked by society. His deeply personal photographs of his dying Aunt Beck and his images from nursing homes in Ohio bear witness to lives frequently hidden from public view. These works capture fleeting gestures of tenderness alongside the stark realities of institutional neglect. 

In the early 1980s, Rečo produced Seniors Home as part of a larger photographic cycle examining social welfare institutions in Bohemia. Created through close personal contact with residents, the series moves beyond bureaucratic documentation to expose the emotional complexities of aging in institutional care: community and loneliness, resilience and resignation. 

Presented together, Baer and Rečo’s photographs reveal striking parallels across national and political contexts in how societies see, support, and sequester the elderly. Their images invite viewers to consider aging as a universal human condition—one shaped by systems of care, yet profoundly intimate. By placing these works in dialogue, The Long Lives We Carry asks audiences to look closely at lives often pushed to the margins.

Artists: Gordon Baer and Jano Rečo