Garry Winogrand 2007
September 8, 2007- October 20, 2007
511 W 25th St
Photographs from the collection of Eli Consilvio.
Garry Winogrand (1928-1984) was born in New York City, where he lived and worked for much of his life. After relocating to Los Angeles in 1978, he developed cancer and died in Mexico at the age of 56. Winogrand’s spontaneous, shoot-from-the-hip approach to the people and events he photographed, and his prolific output -- along with his magnetic personality -- made him a photographer’s photographer who was a powerful influence on all who were drawn to the new genre of 35mm street photography (a term he disliked) depicting life in the city and on the road. After studying with Alexey Brodovitch at New York’s New School for Social Research in 1949, Winogrand began his career by working on assignment for picture magazines and
advertising clients. Like his contemporaries Robert Frank, Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander, however, he soon evolved to become an artist with a specific vision, a strong sense of purpose and a dogged energy. His work changed the record of photographic history by its increasingly frequent appearance in museum and gallery exhibitions, most notably at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Edward Steichen included Winogrand’s pictures in The Family of Man (1955) and Seventy Photographers Look at New York (1958). Steichen’s successor, John Szarkowski, repeatedly selected his prints for exhibitions such as Five Unrelated Photographers (1963); The Photographer’s Eye (1964); New Documents (1967); Mirrors and Windows (1978) and others. Three of Winogrand’s books, accompanied by solo exhibitions of the same title, also established him as a formidable force and are now classic monographs in the history of photography: The Animals (1969); Women Are Beautiful (1975); and Public Relations (1977). A project Winogrand conceived in order to show “the effect of the media on events,” Public Relations depicts peace demonstrations and love-ins in New York’s Central Park; protest rallies; press conferences; and political figures including Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon in action during America’s liberal, irrepressible and often turbulent cultural climate of the 1960s and 1970s. Always the maverick, Winogrand voiced articulate, intelligent assertions about photography that were as bold and incisive as his images. He photographed, he said, “to see what something would look like photographed.” He gave the photograph a new validity. “The photograph isn’t what was photographed. It’s something else. It’s a new fact.” He declared, “There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described.” Despite the socially charged subject matter of his complex images, Winogrand maintained that his concern was for the formal autonomy of the image: “Every photograph is a contention between form and content; one is always threatening to overwhelm the other.” Winogrand received many grants during his career, including several Guggenheim Fellowships and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Other important monographs have also been published since his death: Figments from the Real World, issued in conjunction with the exhibition of the same title, organized by John Szarkowski at The Museum of Modern Art in 1988; The Man in the Crowd: The Uneasy Streets of
Garry Winogrand (1999); and Arrivals and Departures (2004). The prints in this exhibition are from the collection of Eli Consilvio, whose father, Tom Consilvio, was Winogrand’s photographic printer during the last ten years of his life.
Art Reviews of Garry Winogrand 2007
iPhoto Central
October 5, 2007 | | Brian Appel | | "In our consumer age of ironic distance where the viewer suspects both the reality of the photograph and the intentions of the photographer, Garry Winogrand is a breath of fresh air. Armed with a wide-angle lens and the highly mobile Leica rangefinder camera, Winogrand's signature focus on gesture provides us with the authentically unguarded, psychological dimension of people 'caught' inside his frame...." |
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show| Location | | | Gallery | Deborah Bell Photographs | | Address | 511 W 25th St, #703
New York (Chelsea)
NY, 10001
United States | | Phone | 212-691-3883 | | Hours | Sat 12-6 | |
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