Horton Gallery
237 Eldridge Street, 212-253-0700
East Village / Lower East Side
September 17 - October 11, 2009
Reception: Thursday, September 17, 7 - 9 PM
Web Site
The phrase, “slow photography,” might conjure images of large format cameras or glass plate techniques; even the idea of loading film may seem slow considering the efficient speed in which photographic images are created today. However, another connotation may not allude to a technology so much as it does a sensibility ? an approach to understanding particular roles that photographs can play, a methodical and drawn out way to produce paintings. The three artists in Slow Photography use photography as a starting point, taking exorbitant amounts of time to produce ostensible “photos”: paintings that appear to translate a photographic record, yet are something else entirely.
Lauren Warner’s paintings of geyser eruptions revel in nature as a spectacle amusement park, coyly satisfying consumers’ desires for precise moments of ecstasy and picture perfect action shots. Warner’s “greatest hits” of Old Faithful are a reminder that nature, in all its glory, can be consumed in ways similar to a sporting event, a spectacle to gaze upon. Lauren Warner (b. 1977, Cincinnati, OH) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her works were seen most recently in the prestigious Traveling Scholars exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, where she received a grant to research and document the geysers of Yellowstone National Park.
Daniel Rich’s painstaking working process starts with photographs primarily plucked from magazines, newspapers and other media outlets. The artist’s exacting methods of enlarging, cropping, cutting, masking and color-coding offers an altered vantage point to understanding media imagery. To replicate a photograph in such a manner would not have the same impact without Rich’s particular and disciplined approach and manipulations. Daniel Rich (b. 1977, Ulm, Germany) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to SUNDAY, his work has been featured at Perry Rubenstein and Elizabeth Dee galleries, New York, NY, as well as the Maramotti Collection, Reggio Emilia, Italy. Rich’s second solo show at SUNDAY is scheduled for April 2010.
Saul Becker’s paintings might seem “natural” in that they appear to depict an actual space, however, they are in fact a seamless combination of photographs from disparate landscapes. These photos, along with impressions from the artist’s memory, create his measured, deliberate and lonely paintings. Becker has an acute disquiet that portrays the landscape as eerily strong and resilient, but never heroic. The photographic vantage point often acts as a subtle overseer, a reminder that the camera has forever distorted how anyone sees nature. Saul Becker (b. 1975, Tacoma, WA) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to Horton & Co. and SUNDAY, his work has been featured in solo projects at Artists Space and Volta NY. His work has been discussed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and NY Arts Magazine, among others. His work is in the collection of Wellington Management, Boston, MA, as well as the Progressive Art Collection, Cleveland, OH.