BARRY UNDERWOOD – THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND

Posted on 2017-04-03

Inspired by the famous folk tune, “This Land is Your Land” written by Woody Guthrie, Barry Underwood’s series affirms his standing as an environmentalist photographer and ecological advocate. Written in 1940, the song’s original lyrics introduced a critical perspective to the idealistic view of America as Underwood’s images challenge the common bucolic perception of the landscape.

Underwood marks the landscape with LED lights, luminescent substances and other physical processes, utilizing lustrous color and working with shapes, lines and light to point to the immutable traces that human interventions leave behind. By staging a visual disruption in an otherwise familiar setting, Underwood seeks to reveal the unseen potential instilled in the landscape. As a result of the interplay of the natural and unnatural, he creates strikingly beautiful, otherworldly visuals enhancing awareness of environmental issues.

Opposite – Blue Drill, 2015

Exhibition runs through to April 15th, 2017

Sous Les Etoiles Gallery
560 Broadway Suite 603
New York
NY 10012

www.souslesetoilesgallery.net

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THE MECHANICS OF EXPRESSION

Posted on 2017-04-03

In 1949, a group of avant-garde photographers banded together in Germany to revitalize creativity in photography, which had been deemed degenerate by the Nazis. Founded by Otto Steinert, the group became known as Fotoform. By picking up where the Surrealists and the Bauhaus left off, Fotoform became a movement and spread internationally.

From its origins, the medium of photography has held out the promise of enhanced vision, of eyes outside our bodies, in the words of László Moholy-Nagy. It has enticed its practitioners into realms of experiment and speculation, and inspired them to produce works that are equal parts science and self-expression. Even as the medium evolved artistically toward a documentary precision and a fidelity to appearances, it developed an alternative history, a tradition of testing the boundaries of the visual.

The artists in the exhibition have carried that tradition forward in dramatic ways. They have given free rein to photographic processes, embraced abstraction, explored extreme ideas of form, and adapted the oldest photographic tools to new uses and formats.

Opposite – Peter Keetman, Volkswagen Bumpers, 1953

Exhibition runs through to May 13th, 2017

Howard Greenberg Gallery
41 East 57 Street, Suite 1406
New York
NY 10022

www.howardgreenberg.com

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