November 19 - December 17, 2005
Pigeons, UPS drivers, Ford models, the moon, dead sharks, pine trees, over-saturated Harry & David catalog pages, interstate highway junctions, idyllic rural landscapes, and basement clutter. Roe Ethridge shifts between photographic subjects, swiftly discarding them for inverse yet connected subjects. Subjects are set aside, only to be revisited and intermixed with the others.
This sporadic movement is what drives Ethridge's work. The spaces between
the subjects are where the viewer is invited to assume what has been cut out:
an unending stream of connective photos that if included, would have yielded
a nearly linear body of work. Instead, he edits, setting up complex relationships
between his genres of imagery. For County Line Plus Town and Country
Ethridge has selected works from two sets of images, creating an installation
of photos that fills two of the gallery's floors.
County Line is comprised of six loosely accumulated sets, which include
photos of the Canadian Rockies and strip mall signs from suburban Atlanta
and suburban Long Island. The County Line catalog, which accompanied
Ethridge's recent solo project at ICA Boston, functions much like a cross
between an artist book and a stock photography catalog. Along with the near-ideal
landscapes and portraits, Ethridge's publication includes photos of affronting
facades of suburban strip mall signs and a shadowy still life of prepared
meats on a cutting board.
Town and Country is a working title for pictures the artist shot
in upstate New York in the summer of 2005 to illustrate an essay for "Another
Man" magazine, the subject of which was Richard Prince's move upstate from
New York City. Four images from this shoot have been included in the exhibition.
Roe
Ethridge
April 17- April 15, 2004
The Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to present the third solo exhibition of Roe Ethridge. Roe Ethridge has recently shown at the Greengrassi gallery in London and will also participate in the statement section of Art/35/Basel. This exhibition consists of 9 photographs and a book entitled "Spare Bedroom"
"Ethridge moves through photography's own internal "typologies". [and] sees re-engaging with the range of subjects that now reside within the popular culture of photography as a conceptual gesture, a kind of post-appropriate act that recognizes the impossibility of absolute originality while still investing in photographic authorship." Kate Bush, Artforum, October 2003
In
this exhibition, Ethridge lays out a framework in which the act of 'looking
through' connects the images. There are a group of images that are re-photographed
pages from mail order catalogues. Individual pages are laid on a light box
and both sides of the pages become visible. The light passing through the
page creates a double image or montage. Other images in the exhibition explore
Ethridgeís continuous investigation of
common subjects such as the moon, the cityscape and the portrait.
The "Spare Bedroom" book, designed and edited by the artist, borrows from the conventions of the catalogue and magazine. The book contains a disparate array of images, from travel snapshots, a series of images following a furniture commission, and pictures from the exhibition. The book creates a parallel space in which to view the images. The act of flipping through this ëmagalogueí locates the images between the realm of the generic and the original.
Ethridge's recent photographs further this dialogue by maintaining the studied precision of his earlier images and implicating them in non-linear narrative structures. Individually, his images are simultaneously iconic and enigmatic. Juxtaposed, Ethridge's combinations of images reveal other private currents.
The exhibition will be on view from April 17th to May 15th 2004. A reception will be held for the artist in the gallery on April 17th from 6-8 PM at 516 West 20th St., New York City. For information call 212-741-8849
The Bow
April 27-June 1, 2002
Over the past few years I've been trying to make my artwork more fluid and loose. Focused less on a concept and more on the relationships between ideas or images. My experience doing commercial jobs has had a huge influence; I could describe myself as working in an "editorial" mode.
Think about the structure of most monthly magazines. They have a main theme or a cover story. They also have sections that recur every month, also something to open the issue and something to close it. When it's done they start all over again. I think this could be a good metaphor for describing the way the work comes together.
The pigeons were sent up from "Universal Studios" Florida where they were doing "shows". They are trained and rented out for films and advertising. Movie Pigeons! I shot them with a high-speed flash that "freezes" them in mid flight. The technique is borrowed from nature photography, most specifically from a guy named Crawford H. Greenwalt who photographed hummingbirds "in the field" with monochromatic backgrounds.
When I started shooting the NY Water landscapes I thought I would document all these bucolic spots, working my way down state, eventually arriving in NY Harbor. The series is ongoing but in a much less literal way. The two in the show have a lot to do with wishing. Wishing it was my property and not someone else's. Upstate real estate magazines always say "20 acres, picturesque creek, good fishing" or something like that.
The Car Carrier picture tangentially relates to the projects mentioned above. The aerial "bird's eye" view of a ship packed with cars going to God knows where. The digital repetition of the image refers to the prismatic filters used in movies. The effect usually indicates that the person who is seeing this scene has either lost their mind or has been drugged. But this effect also creates the illusion of a fleet of car carriers. I keep thinking how it's like those WWII newsreel shots of battleships and aircraft carriers in the Pacific.
The self-portrait was shot early in 2000. Funny story of how I got the black eye. I was climbing down a rock piling at Montauk Point; I slipped on a steep, slick one and bounced my face off the edge of it. It was New Year's Day, the first day of the new millennium and nature kicked my ass. The image was shot very quickly- I really just wanted to document the colors of the bruise and the way the blood had made a circle around my eye. It looked like make-up and everybody thought it was a fake. It was a perfect black eye.
The Bow will be on view from April 27- June 1, 2002. A reception will be held for the artist in the gallery on April 27 6-8 pm at 516 West 20th St., New York City. For information call 212-741-8849.
