30 Oct 2008 to 24 Dec 2008
Gallery Hours Tues-Fri 10-5:30. Saturday 11-5:30
Laurence Miller Gallery
20 West 57th Street
NY 10019
New York, NY
New York
North America
p: +1 (212) 397 3930
m:
f: +1 (212) 397 3932
w: www.laurencemillergallery.com
Peter Bialobrzeski Transition 23, 2005 38 x 49in, c-print, edition 7
Peter Bialobrzeski Lost in Transition October 30 - December 24, 2008
Peter Bialobrzeski's third exhibition at Laurence Miller Gallery will feature 6 large-scale color works from his recent series, Lost in Transition. Continuing his decade-long search for beauty and meaning in a rapidly industrializing world, Bialobrzeski focuses his large format camera on landscapes that are in the middle of being recreated, and celebrates in glorious color and glowing light places that are desolate and uninviting This contradiction produces images that suggest a festival atmosphere while describing isolation and dehumanization. The long exposures required by these mostly nighttime images create ghost-like and other-worldly scenarios which are rooted in reality by the presence of naked trees, people lingering in the shadows, and other evidence of man's inescapable presence. By choosing not to specifically identify their locations, he points out the universal nature of these conditions.
Transition 23, 2005 reveals a large odd-shaped glowing building featuring a sign declaring GRAND MALL hovering over the remains of a shanty town, a powerful reminder that progress often inflicts pain. Transition 52, 2005 features a red and black Rothko-like industrial facade glowing like a pair of designer sunglasses, seductive but revealing nothing of what is concealed within.
Peter Bialobrzeski was born in Wolfsburg, Germany in 1961. He studied politics at the University of Braunschweig , followed by studies in photography and design at the Folkwangschule, University of Essen. He has published four monographs thus far: Lost in Transition, Heimat, Neon Tigers and XXX Holy-Journeys into the Spiritual Heart of India. His photographs have been widely collected and exhibited, most recently at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City in the exhibition Man/Nature: Recent European Landscape Photography.
MAGGIE TAYLOR: In Wonderland October 30 - December 24, 2008
From October 30 through December 24, Laurence Miller Gallery will present a selection of contemporary surrealistic images by Maggie Taylor illustrating the 150�year old story of Alice in Wonderland. Maggie thus joins the ranks of artists like Salvador Dali and more recently the fashion photographer Annie Leibovitz who continue to find inspiration in this classic story.
The connection between Maggie Taylor's computer generated and lushly colorful digital prints and Lewis Carroll's phantasmagorical story almost seem too obvious at first. And surely it is serendipitous that Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was also a photographer whose interest in photographing young women has received renewed acclaim, most recently in an exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York, 2003.
But Maggie's illustrations, so many years removed from the original Alice tale, have a definite post modern feel, and seem liberated from the literal aspects of the story. Her Alice not only exists in the many shapes described in the book but also as many ages: in The Great Puzzle, she seems on the verge of adulthood, while These Strange Adventures depict an eight year old enjoying a magical dream. And the creatures of the Florida in which Maggie now lives��owls, panthers, turtles, flamingoes, lobsters, and crabs even sharks circling the man lobster in When the Tide Rises��have been newly transformed into a beautifully realized anthropomorphic stew. It is an old story made new again.
The entire Alice in Wonderland series will travel for the next few years, beginning at the Harn Museum at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and is accompanied by a lushly illustrated book. Maggie's art has been collected by individuals, corporations, and museums worldwide including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Musee de la Photographie, Belgium and Museet for Fotokunst, Denmark.
