Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. “a simple song”

Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. “a simple song”

Baxter Street/ the Camera Club of NY

This event has ended.

Baxter St at CCNY presents a simple song by 2018 Workspace Resident Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. This exhibition comprising of multimedia photographic and photo-sculptural works, draws influences from Billy Preston’s 1971 album, I Wrote a Simple Song, in which the named track describes working on a straightforward song for an intended person and having the song embellished for radio success, leaving this special gesture now stripped of its intimacy and privacy.

In Brown Jr.’s portrait photographs, the pictured individuals are often obscured or located residually within the image. In Sssummmmmwhhhhhhhhhhere, a site-specific installation in which Brown Jr. has created a woven awning in front of a photograph, some areas of the image are obscured completely, while others are slightly visible. The work is less concerned with representation, more often rendering private moments and discourse with reserve.

Brown Jr. has been interested in the photographic history of black representation and how intimate experiences are revealed as both personal artifacts and sociopolitical stimulus. However, in subverting the biographical context in which his images are made, he creates photographs that are open-ended in a literary sense. Using the pictured environment, objects within the space, or the margins of the frame itself to disguise or reference an individual, Brown Jr.’s photographs become a prime space for curiosity and refusal.

Media

• Photography

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