NYAB Event - Arne Svenson “The Workers”

Arne Svenson “The Workers”

Julie Saul Gallery

This event has ended.

In Arne Svenson’s fifth solo show with the gallery we will present his most recent series called The Workers. As a conceptual and thematic extension and bookend to The Neighbors, Svenson is no longer shooting from his studio, but is out in the world recording details of men engaged in manual labor. The same techniques and palette have been applied as The Neighbors, but unlike the private lives and leisure time spent in the interiors of luxury apartments, here Svenson seeks to examine the nuances of another form of human activity- manual toil with tools and machines. He continues to photograph through windows, but here refines his images with an almost microscopic scrutiny of individuals focused on careful work. Whereas in The Neighbors we see people napping, dining or staring at their digital devices, here we see hands, elbows, backs and shoulders in evident concentration on a physical activity.

Svenson uses an oval as the framing format to signify a window without referring to traditional rectangular shapes, and alludes to the convention used in Old Masters portraiture that designates status. Svenson describes the imagery as a “Narrative of eloquence in the face of brittle conditions, of the beauty and delicacy of a hand in motion hovering over a machine that could tear that hand apart.”

The exhibition coincides with the publication of the monograph The Neighbors with forty-two color plates and an essay by David Ebony. The book will be available through the gallery and will be distributed by D.A.P./Artbook.

Svenson has exhibited with the gallery since 1992 and his work has been exhibited at many public institutions including The New York Public Library currently in “Public Eye”, the Transformer Station in Cleveland, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, The Drawing Center, The Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In February 2016 the Museum of Modern Art in Denver will open a solo survey show of The Neighbors.