FOLEY is extremely pleased to present an intimate gallery talk with Chris Buck and Conor Risch.
Chris Buck will be discussing his current exhibition, Presence, with Conor Risch, Senior Editor at Photo District News. The conversation will begin at 4PM this Saturday, February 16th and be followed by a book signing and libations. Seating is limited.
The whole point of having your portrait taken is to promote your commodity - your face - and I love how this series is the exact opposite of that.
- Cindy Sherman
A crazy subversive book.
- Kathy Ryan, New York Times Magazine
In our celebrity crazed culture, we have been trained to wait obsessively for images of our favorite bold faced stars and froth at the mouth with frenzy over outrageous pictures of the famous and important. As a result, a veritable army of talented and creative celebrity photographers has sprung up, continually pushing the edge of the visual envelope in the name of ever increasing publicity and promotion. This is what makes Chris Buck's Presence project so unexpected. The big name celebrities are here all right, but they're hiding from view, leaving us with empty rooms and vacant spaces, a sly conceptual middle finger raised to the audience.
I think Buck's inversions are clever and will likely be durably insightful; I can certainly imagine a big museum exhibit of celebrity portraiture ending with one of Buck's images, deftly pulling the rug out from under the previously contented viewers. It's a great example of photographing the unphotographable, exposing the quirky passions and fixations that lurk in our minds.
In Presence, Buck plays with our celebrity-obsessed culture and delivers portraits of some big names: Robert De Niro, David Lynch, Cindy Sherman...only, they aren't in the picture. Or are they? Taken over a five year period, each photograph is titled by the sitter, but none of them appear in the frame. Actually, they do...we just can't see them. They are hiding, somewhere in the composition. You have our doubts? So did I. Along with each photograph is a signed witness statement, testifying that indeed the sitter is present and in the photograph. Buck gives us the celebrity without celebrity.
- FOLEY
Presence has been published by Kehrer Verlag and will be available at the gallery.
Presence will remain on view through February 24th. FOLEY is open Wednesday - Sunday, 12 - 6PM. For more information or to request images, please contact the gallery at 212.244.9081 or via e-mail at info@foleygallery.com.
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