beginning june 15th, autoversion, ltd presents a photo installation by artist, robin graubard. graubard’s noirish travelogues imbue inclusive and attractive elements into outsiders and the outlaw mystique. her work reveals a wildlife within the mundane and a commonplace within the strange. depicted in vivid colorings and haunting black & whites, graubard’s subjects are unveiled with a simplicity that marks strong emotional content and elusive personal histories. the artist’s travels both domestic and abroad have landed her photographs in life, time, the new york times, associated press, paris match, der spiegel, the guardian and many other publications. graubard’s journalistic endeavors also found her working as staff photographer for the new york post. she brings to her artwork an eye highly trained in the presentation and fabrication of truth.

“if i had the wings of an angel, out of this prison i’d fly” is a trilogy of photographic “mise en scenes” extrapolated from graubard’s recent history of photo work. the groupings suggest a low key awareness of fiction and an expressive sense of psychology. graubard’s protagonists are people she has met, places she has been and images she collects. hung on pale pink, ocean green and white walls, the artist weaves each grouping into a visual poetry loaded with heavy crime-drama ethos. the exhibition reads like a william burroughs novel; traveling from destination to destination, encountering familiar, unfamiliar, and dangerous situations. all the while, bucking any sense of linear time or history.

pinned alongside her photographs are laser print reproductions of souvenirs she has collected from her trips. they include a runaway letter written to the artist in 1968, a siouxsie and the banshees backstage pass and a tabloid news teen-murder cover story featuring the artist’s photography. the exhibition’s title injects another token of remembrance into the show’s narrative. taken from a 1920’s hillbilly hit, “the prisoner’s song,” the line was often sung by the artist’s grandmother. these prosaic mementos anchor the exhibition’s realism and act as powerful authenticators for graubard’s quasi-documentary pulp fictions.

Robin Graubard lives and works in New York City. She is a 2005 recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation’s artists grants program and has been nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes. Her exhibition history includes: “Noise: Young American Photography,” TH-Inside, Milan, Italy and Berlin, Germany (2007); “Open Walls” curated by Matthew Higgs, White Columns, NYC (2005); “CBGB & OMFUG,” CB’s 313 Gallery, NYC (2005); “Indigestible Correctness I” curated by Rita Ackermann & Lizzi Bougatsos, Participant Inc., NYC (2004); “Rocks and Trees” curated by David Armstrong, Photographic Research Center, Boston, MA (2001) and “The Doll Hospital,” a solo exhibition at Anthology Film Archives, NYC (1998). In 1976, the artist produced directed and edited film of The Talking Heads and The Ramones.