NYAB Event - Arne Svenson “The Neighbors”

Arne Svenson “The Neighbors”

Julie Saul Gallery

This event has ended.

For my subjects there is no question of privacy; they are performing behind a transparent scrim on a stage of their own creation with the curtain raised high.

Through the death of a birding friend I obtained his telephoto lens. Having no interest in birds, I turned to the residents of a glass-walled apartment building across the street from my NYC studio. The Neighbors don’t know they are being photographed; I carefully shoot from the shadows of my home into theirs. I am not unlike the birder, quietly waiting for hours, watching for the flutter of a hand or the movement of a curtain as an indication that there is life within.

As the Neighbors move into and out of their prosceniums, divergent narratives are created in the segmented quadrants. Day and night, obstructed only by reflections, the patina of dust on glass and the occasional pulled curtain I am at the window, waiting for those curtains to part again and for the tableaus to materialize, for the performance to begin.