The School of Constructed Environments of Parsons The New School for Design is pleased to present “See Through City,” an exhibition of photographs by Jill Corson, in the Cases Gallery in the School of Constructed Environments, on the second floor of 25 East 13th Street in New York City.

Corson’s multi-layered jewel-toned photographs of New York City’s built environment reveal her unique manner of seeing and recording our consumer culture. A colorist, Corson creates psychedelic montage in the moment by using reflection in glass to juxtapose pedestrians with luscious store window displays.

The work provides keen social commentary. Made between 1999 and 2005, Corson’s pieces record the retail boom years along Fifth Avenue and in Manhattan’s other high-end shopping districts during the years preceding the current economic downturn.

“There is enormous visual pleasure in these photographs,” writes Jerry Cullum, Senior Editor of Art Papers Magazine. “There is also visual information, for the would-be sociologist of the contemporary street. This is what Walter Benjamin would have called the phantasmagoria of consumer culture, the oh so trendy razzle-dazzle of its bling-bling.”

In his 2005 book, La Ville: Entre Reprèsentations et Rèalitès, (SCÉRÉN/CNDP Press), French architectural writer Claude Loupiac compared Corson’s photographs with work by photographer Eugène Atget.

Corson is Associate Director of Academic Advising for the School of Constructed Environments. Meter Gallery and Gallery Stock represent her work.