Tuesday, February 14, 2012

The City in Winter: Photographs by Draper Professor Peter Lucas

Draper adjunct Peter Lucas, who teaches "International Studies in Human Rights," will be showing his most recent photographic project, "The City in Winter" at the New School's Skybridge Art & Sound Space. The opening reception is this Wednesday, February 15.




The Skybridge Art & Sound Space

Eugene Lang College / The New School

65 West 11th Street / 66 West 12th Street

Third Floor Passageway

THE CITY IN WINTER

Photographs by Peter Lucas / Graphic design by Garry Waller

February 15 – March 21, 2011

Opening Reception: Wednesday, February 15th, 5:00 – 9:00 p.m.

The Skybridge Art & Sound Space is proud to present The City in Winter, a recent photographic project by Peter Lucas.

In 1990, the late Belgian poet Francois Jacqmin published a book of poems entitled Le Livre de la Neige (The Book of the Snow). Each poem is ten lines; a classical format the French call dizain, a mode of writing that opens a space for expression but withdrawals from any overt meaning or resolution. With each poetic image, Jacqmin evokes a subtle philosophic query, a deft meditation on the ephemeral nature of existence, and a hushed description of the elemental condition of wintertime.

Using Jacqmin’s poems as inspiration, Lucas began to photograph New York during the winter to find visual equivalents. Since the poems are essentially quiet and placeless, he intuitively chose moments when nothing seems to happen and no location in particular can be marked. Shooting with negative space to accommodate the overwriting of poems, each image has been thoughtfully designed by graphic artist Garry Waller. The resulting photo/poems explore the possibility of opening each image to a deeper dimension, a fragment of a story, a whisper of something else, beyond the visual silence of the city in winter.

No comments:

Post a Comment