EXHIBITION CLOSING

Max de Esteban: Heads Will Roll will be closing on Friday, October 30th at 6pm. If you have not visited the gallery to view the exhibition yet, we would urge you to do so. The photographs have been well received by the press and gallery visitors alike. 

The photographs are available for purchase as follows:

Edition: 5 + 1AP in each size

Size: 25” x 19” image on 28” x 22” sheet & 45” x 35” image on 49” x 39” sheet

Medium: Archival Pigment Print

Above: Defined By Catastrophe (detail on the right)

COLLECTOR DAILY REVIEW

Max de Esteban, Heads Will Roll (at) Klompching

Loring Knoblauch, October 21, 2015

(extract)

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 large scale color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the single room gallery space. All of the works are archival pigment prints, made in 2013. The prints come in two sizes: 49×39 (in editions of 5+1AP) and 28×22 (in editions of 5+1AP); there are 8 large prints and 1 small print on view, drawn from a total of 24 images in the series. A monograph of this body of work was published by Hatje Cantz in 2014 (here).

Comments/Context: Part of what de Esteban is doing here is unpacking the structural foundations of what a photograph has historically been and how it has functioned, and rebuilding those assumptions from the ground up with a different kind of digital existence in mind. Instead of photography being rooted in documentation, or inspiration, or some definition of “truth”, de Esteban is putting re-interpretation and re-translation at the forefront of the digital now, with a distinct and deliberate emphasis on the re-. What the source files meant in their original or archival context isn’t important – it’s how they have been reassembled to generate an evolved harmony (or dissonance) of new allusions, references, hints, and perceived memories.

While de Esteban’s chosen mood is full of ominous foreboding edging toward catastrophe (there’s even some last ditch sex as the bombs are falling from the sky), that personal cultural pessimism isn’t the important analytical vector here. What’s more telling is de Esteban’s crisp definitional argument about what digital photography is now, what tasks it employs and requires, and what outcomes it can generate. He’s staked out the ground for a different kind of photographer/artist – not one who uses a camera to see the world, but one who reinterprets digital imagery from a thousand sources and synthesizes it into a new kind of visual expression that resonates with our current image saturated existence. Others have done and continue to do this too of course, but de Esteban’s mind set seems particularly structured toward consciously breaking with the past.

Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The large 49×39 prints are $5500 each, while the smaller 28×22 prints are $2500 each. De Esteban’s work has little secondary market history at this point, so gallery retail remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up.

Visit the complete Collector Daily review HERE

REPRESENTATION ANNOUNCEMENT

We are pleased to announce the representation of Robert Moran.

Clients and visitors of the gallery may recall that Robert Moran was a Finalist in our FRESH2013 Summer Exhibition, through which we featured his work online. His work will feature in an upcoming two-person exhibition, which will be announced later this week. 

Robert Moran's photographic practice spans black & white vistas of icebergs, moody street scenes and memorizing portraits. His most recognizable work, and focus of the gallery, is the highly successful Relic series. Made between 2011-2014, the photographs that make up Relics, present artifacts from our recent past that are discarded, and for the most part, no longer used. The objects range from manual typewriters, earth globes, dial phones and lava lamps through to electric fans and pigskin footballs.

Each machine or object is centrally positioned upon a shelf, photographed front-on and lit brightly. The method of depicting the objects is reminiscent of an anthropological survey, presenting the viewer with the details to scrutinize. However, the simplicity of approach also enables us to view the subject matter with a touch of nostalgia, warmth and to ignite memories of an object's past use. 

"The relics helped people through dark nights and hot summers; offered medicinal and musical relief. In that way, they and all the objects we have used, loved, and discarded shape the character and spirit of our society".–Robert Moran

ROBERT MORAN (b. 1952) lives and works off the coast of Maine in the US. His photographs have been exhibited in numerous exhibitions across the US and internationally, including at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale (Australia), The Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, US), Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, US) and the Magenta Flash Forward Festival (Canada) among others. Photographs by Robert Moran are represented in the collections of Cleveland Clinic, the Magenta Foundation and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.

View the Relics series on the gallery website HERE.