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installation view
press release:
January 6 - February 10, 2001
"American"
an exhibition of photography
and video curated by Patrick Callery
Lewis Baltz
Burt Barr
Tim Davis
Danny Hobart
Donald Moffett
Vicky Sambunaris
Postmasters Gallery is pleased to present AMERICAN , an exhibition of
photography and video curated by Patrick Callery. The show opens Saturday,
January 6 and continues through Saturday, February 10. The artists involved
are Lewis Baltz, Burt Barr, Tim Davis, Danny Hobart, Donald Moffett and
Vicky Sambunaris.
The theme behind AMERICAN is the melancholic, dark undercurrent
of the America landscape and culture. Within a society that is outwardly
based on optimism, ambition and pride, many artists of the late 20th century
have eloquently lifted the cover of idealism to show us the ironic and
disheartening debris left in the wake of such forward momentum. Following
the photographs of the Farmer Security Administration which ennobled the
plight of the Depression era, the next seminal moment in photography
is captured within Robert Frank's The Americans. It is a gritty portrayal
of a country in the midst of its post-war ascendence, yet forever riddled
with existential contradiction. This haunting work inspired a whole generation
of photojournalism. Fast forward to the 1960's and 70's and another movement
emerges but now directing the camera at the American landscape. What was
to become known as the New Topographical, produced images of America's
wastelands, vapid architectural development and cultural iconography.
Almost exclusively void of people, the viewer bears witness to the desolate
scenes in a resounding silence. To draw a similar parallel to Frank and
photojournalism, it could be said that these artists also coverted the
more acknowledged utopian photographic dictums of landscape photography
such as in the work of Ansel Adams, Edward and Brett Weston and the "f.64"
group. Its most known practitioners are Lewis Baltz and Robert Adams, of
which we are happy to include here a portfolio of Mr. Baltz from 1977 entitled
Nevada. Other artists in this exhibition are of various generations
and ideologies, but continue to reveal despondent, satirical or even endearing
reflections on subjects mined from deep within the shadowy side of the
American psyche.
Postmasters Gallery, located in Chelsea at 459 West 19th Street
(corner of 10th Avenue), is open Tuesday through Saturday to 6 pm.
Please contact Magdalena Sawon at the gallery
or Patrick Callery at 212-343-1417 with any questions.
e-mail: postmasters@thing.net or magda@thing.net
Following are brief descriptios of every participant
Lewis Baltz
Lewis Baltz is well known as a seminal photographer in the New Topographical
genre. Since the early 1970's, he has photographed the space between the
urban and suburban. Industrial parks, track house construction sites and
littered waste lands have been the major subjects of his work. His landscapes
are rough and foreboding, however, in addition to the cultural commentary
they provide, he captures a compelling visual richness and complexity.
Exhibited in this show is a portfolio of 15 images entitled Nevada, 1977
and an individual image Motel Room, Central California Coast, 1967
. Baltz is California born, now living and working in Paris. He has exhibited
extensively in the US, Europe and Asia. His work is in numerous museum
collections including the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, LA MoCA,
ICP, New York. He has had a widely traveled retrospective organized by
the Des Moines Art Center.
Burt Barr
Burt Barr is known primarily as a video/installation artist. On display
will be a video projection entitled Jet, 2000. A small projection monitor
hanging from the ceiling depicts a blue sky. A tiny lone jet appears from
the bottom corner followed by its vapor trail and travels diagonally across
the screen. The soundtrack is first the chirping of a cricket which slowly
dissolves into the sound of the jets engine.
Mr. Barr has shown in the Whitney Biennial, ZKM, Karlsrue, Germany,
Patrick Callery Fine Art, Paula Cooper Gallery and in the spring of 2001
at Brent Sikkema Gallery.
Tim Davis
Tim Davis is a curious observer of simplicity and the sublime meanings
of what is before ones eyes at any given moment. Roadside strip malls,
hospitals, parking lots are some among the common environments where he
composes ironic picture from details large or small. Mr. Davis has also
published two volumes of poetry. He is currently a student in the MFA photography
program at Yale University.
Danny Hobart
Danny Hobart's video/digital work lifts primarily from mainstream film
and television. He selects short segments and digitally re-edits them into
poignant studies. For this exhibit, Hobart presents The Pleasure Principle.
Here he uses footage of River Phoenix from My Own Private Idaho. In a brief
clip from the film, Phoenix's character is on the verge of a narcoleptic
attack after a failed seduction attempt by an older man in a Mercedes Benz.
Hobart remixes and extends his jerky, aloof movements. Specter-like, the
man holds open the car door, looming motionless in the distant background.
Finally, Phoenix drops out of the frame and the scene fades to black, implying
somewhat of a requiem to the late actor.
Donald Moffett
On first examination Donald Moffett's photographs of blue New
York City skies seem audaciously simple. As their meaning reveals itself,
a vast number of symbolic references or aesthetic questions arise. Blue
implying sadness, the promise and cheer of a beautiful day, the infinity
of the sky above us or void surrounding us can all be applied. A contradiction
also comes up in the act of documenting something that is without form
or the faith that the artist in reality even performed this act at all.
Any of this can be seen as optimistic, absurd, despondent, generous. On
view will a triptych entitled Lot 070499 (The 4th of July), which depicts
the morning, noon and dusk sky of that day in 1999. All of Moffett's photographs
in this body of work are unique and not editioned, furthering the depth
of this process in that he uses a medium which is endlessly reproducible
to make an artwork that is as singular as the moment the shot is captured.
Moffett has recently exhibited at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, Marc
Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles and next season at the Museum of Contemporary
Art in Chicago. He has exhibited in the Whitney Biennial and was a founding
member of the AIDS activist collective Gran Fury.
Vicky Sambunaris
Vicky Sambunaris photographs stark industrial landscapes containing
warehouses and trucking way stations. The vast buildings hug the land,
intersecting in the place between earth and sky. Her work certainly relays
on relevant content, however, one is struck by the transformation of these
imposing, utilitarian structures into minimalist aesthetic forms as empirical
as a Donald Judd sculpture. Her subjects, light condition and vantage points
are very considered. She uses a 5x7 format view camera which provides for
near flawless detail in these exquisite large scale prints. Sambunaris
is a recent graduate of Yale University and lives and works in New York
and on the road.
Shirley Irons
For Postmasters ongoing project The Hole in the Floor, artist Shirley
Irons will exhibit a painting especially made for viewing from this unusual
vantage point.
Tirtza Even
Also on view will be an interactive CD-rom by Israeli artist Tirtza
Even entitled Rural.
Patrick Callery, curator
Patrick Callery has worked as an art dealer, gallery owner and curator
in New York for over ten years.
reviews:
Voice Choices Shortlist/Photo
The Village Voice, January 17-23, 2001
'AMERICAN' Sometime gallerist Patrick Callery turns curator with this
savvy show
that mixes photo and video visions of the U.S. social landscape. A
grid of Lewis Baltz's
brilliantly matter-of-fact 1977 images of Nevada housing sites sets
a noir tone picked up
most persuasively by Tim Davis in five high-impact color shots that
pin down contemporary
Americana with bracing wit. His pictures of a Nissan dealership, a
Salvation Army store,
and the pay phone outside a 7-Eleven, all bathed in a sick artificial
light, are cold-eyed and
weirdly iconic. Further afield, Vicky Sambunaris looks to formerly
wide-open spacesó
grassy tracts now circumscribed by ugly office slabs or an unending
line of parked trucks.
THROUGH FEBRUARY 10, Postmasters, 459 West 19th Street, 727-3323. (Aletti)
images of artworks in the exhibition:
Lewis Baltz
Motel Room, Central California
Coast,1967
1967/1990
silver gelatin print, ed.
of 5 (5/5)
8 5/8 x 13 inches
Lewis Baltz
Nevada, 1977
silver gelatin prints
portfolio of 15 images, ed.
of 40 (AP#6)
6 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches each
Lewis Baltz
Nevada, 1977 (detail-one
of the 15 images)
silver gelatin prints
portfolio of 15 images, ed.
of 40 (AP#6)
6 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches each
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