PhotoLit - USA

Text engl. - Titled after a Gardener monograph published in 1982. "[...] this exhibition features early prints of images from [his] highly acclaimed, exquisitely printed book. The black-and-white photographs, made by Gardner with his 35mm cameras on road trips throughout the mainland United States from 1960-1980, reveal a nation of contradictions. Its people are obsessed with guns, Bibles, the Vietnam war, the cold war and partying at Mardi Gras, in a nation still beset by issues of racial segregation." (bwgallerist.com/2010/06/08/on-site-america-illustrated-george-w-gardner-deborah-bell-photographs-nyc/; seen 02.2018).

Text engl. - "Davidson, unlike other photographers before him, embedded himself in the world of his subjects for extended periods, he even joined a circus in 1958 in order to get the right pictures, the results of which formed themselves into series of powerful photo-essays. "Brooklyn Gang" and "East 100th Street" are perhaps his two most famous, and are the results of months and months living with both a gang of youths on Coney Island, and the inhabitants of a run-down tenement block in Harlem, New York. Through a combination of familiarity and his own visual poetry, Davidson brought these, and other subjects, to life in the many books and exhibitions that resulted from these projects. - Opening in May 2011, our exhibition will focus on several of these key photo-essays, namely, The Circus, Brooklyn Gang, Civil Rights Movement, East 100th Street, England/Scotland/Wales - 1960, and Central Park. - Davidson is mainly interested in documenting the struggles and triumphs of people as they go through their lives - the American Dream laid bare. His photographs are powerful, truthful, sometimes brutal, and often breathtaking. Through this honesty Davidson gives his subjects a voice and a platform to be remembered by, but he also finds the process personally satisfying. As he once said: 'My pictures are not escapes from reality, but a contemplation of reality, so that I can experience life in a deeper way.'" (http://www.chrisbeetles.com/exhibitions/bruce-davidson.html; seen 02,2018).

Text engl. - Other ed.: Heidelberg: Kehrer 2011 (same ISBN). Special Edition: Limited Edition of 25, with signed C-print / diasec 1.5 “ thick slab x 13 ¼” x 10 ¼” , with signed book in acrylic glass box. - German born photographer Renate Aller has been photographing the Atlantic Ocean for over a decade from a single point on the Hamptons’ coastline. Her images capture the infinitely shifting colors and textures of the sky and water, and the beauty and grandeur of the ocean, providing a rich document of what has drawn people to this area for generations. The sublime beauty of this view, which Aller directly connects to the great 19th century German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, is also a metaphor for the landscape of the human emotions. Aller’s viewpoint is static, but the changing weather and light allow for a diverse series of images that open up a vast ‘visual library’ of memories and associations. Printed in Germany, the book captures the subtle mystery of her larger prints and the original oceanscapes. Co-edited by and including an interview with the artist by German Art Historian Jasmin Seck, and with contributions by Hamburger Kunsthalle Museum’s contemporary art curator Dr. Petra Roettig and New York critic Richard B. Woodward that place Aller’s work both in the context of landscape photography and the history of images of the East End’s southern shore.