ON
VIEW: FEBRUARY 29 - MARCH 29, 2008
OPENING
RECEPTION: FEBRUARY 29, 2008, 6 - 8 PM
Gil Blank, Untitled, No Date, Chromogenic C-Type Print, 50 3/8"
x 58 3/8"
Courtesy of the Artist and LaMontagne Gallery
LaMontagne Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of
new photographs by Gil Blank, opening on February 29 and running
through March 29th, 2008. This will be the first presentation of
Blank's work in Boston, and the first full-gallery show by a single
artist at LaMontagne.
Two large-format color photographs anchor the main gallery. An image
of the U.S. Air Force's B2 "Spirit" stealth nuclear bomber,
seen from far overhead and silhouetted against a wide flat field
of crimson red, is installed opposite a perspectival view of an
aging and half-illuminated sign erected in France in honor of Franklin
D. Roosevelt. Both photographs are the result of over a decade of
intensive field and studio work, during which Blank first had to
obtain governmental approval to access his subjects, and then extensively
reworked the visual representation of each. Alluding to the graphic
and revolutionary sensibilities of Lissitzky, Rodchenko, and Malevich,
and formatted to the aspect ratio of national flags, the two works
are bridged by images of firework blasts that might alternately
signal celebrations or munitions. The present-day realities of consensus
politics and mechanized death are abstracted by images that borrow
their authority from a time of utopian faith in social and technological
perfectability.
Three nearly identical black-and-white photographs from a larger
group of sixteen such images are installed in the gallery's project
room. Each shows the name of a different city in raised relief,
casting shadows against a field of gray. Similarly recalling fascist-era
typography or title treatments from noir cinema, TOKYO, LONDON,
and NEW YORK might read like a list of potential bombing sites,
or just as plausibly as fashion shopping franchises. In fact the
signs were photographed on the architectural fascia of the new Times
Square headquarters of Lehman Brothers, where each of the city names
was intended to denote an interchangeable node in the network of
global finance. Writ large and encased behind screens of industrially-produced
acrylic, the images are made available to close inspection, but
impenetrable just the same.
Finally, a lone reconsideration of a portrait, set apart from the
other works, provides a site for an internal reckoning in parallel
to the larger, externalized displacements of the main installation.
All of Blank's subjects are recorded with the same painstaking clarity
and abundant detail, suggesting that access to even an infinite
amount of information is never a guarantor of knowable experience.
Gil Blank's photographs have been exhibited internationally at venues
including the Paula Cooper and Nicole Klagsbrun galleries in New
York, CB Artspace in Tokyo, and Galerie Rodolphe Janssen in Brussels.
His work made its public debut at Greater New York, presented at
PS1/MoMA in 2005. Concurrent with the exhibition at LaMontagne Gallery,
his photographs will be presented as part of Recent Acquisitions,
Gifts, and Works from 1985-2008 at White Columns in New York, curated
by Bob Nickas.
Please join us at the opening reception for the exhibition on Friday,
February 29th, from 6-8 pm.
For further information, please contact the gallery at: 617 464
4640.
Founded
in 2007, LaMontagne Gallery is a 2,300 square foot exhibition space
located in South Boston on East Second Street. Russell LaMontagne
was previously co-Founder of LFL Gallery in New York City.
