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A renowned photographer who's exhibited internationally and been published in The New Yorker will speak about his work this Thursday, March 15th at Spartanburg Art Museum. Gus Powell will talk about his work and experience photographing Bloomberg Philanthropies' Public Art Project, which will be on view from March 15th through May 6th at Spartanburg Art Museum (SAM), 200 East St. John St. Powell will also speak about his recent book The Lonely Ones, which pairs photographs with poetic, imaginative texts, and from which a number of pieces are also on display. The talk, which coincides with the opening of the exhibition, will take place on March 15th at 6:30 p.m.
Gus Powell is an established photographer; his work has been exhibited internationally including a solo show at The Museum of The City of New York; and in group exhibitions at The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts Houston and FOAM, NL. In a recent TIME profile of Powell, writer and artist Aaron Schuman praised his ability to mix images with text in The Lonely Ones, from which original works will be on view for the SAM's upcoming exhibition:
"Photographs such as Powell’s, which are in fact strengthened and made meaningful by their open-endedness and the curiosity it inspires, are often stifled if not strangled when matched with accompanying captions or texts...[yet] Powell performs this balancing act between text and image masterfully, using sparse sentences to invoke and enhance the symbolic power of his imagery." - Arron Schuman, "See How Gus Powell Mixed Words and Images for Wits," TIME Magazine
The works Schuman refers to, from the Lonely Ones series, are large photographs - some nearly 4 feet wide - where quotidian subject matter is paired with snippets of text in elegant, spare compositions. Some seem vaguely humorous - a horse and woman crossing each other in a New York street is captioned "Let's Not Ruin it By Talking." Others are poignant, even moving - a photograph of three men standing on a fog-shrouded beach, signaling an unseen ship or deity with a red smoke flare, is simply captioned "Yes."
The other works by Powell on view at Spartanburg Art Museum, a series of photographs he was commissioned to produce by Bloomberg Philanthropies' Public Art Challenge documenting public art projects in New York, Indiana, California, and Spartanburg, South Carolina, are of a less esoteric nature. Each photo corresponds to a work of public art produced for the Challenge, depicting people at work or play, or in the act of viewing said works of art. In one, a skateboarder kick-flips in front of one of artist Erwin Redl's LED Panels at Spartanburg's C.C. Woodson Community Center. In another, as the sun sets, a crowd gathers in front of the Arthouse installation in Gary, Indiana. But in these works, as equally as in Powell's more explicitly arty Lonely Ones series, the eye of a master photographer is clearly at work. As Gus Powell himself said in a 2007 interview:
"What I enjoy about New York and what I enjoy about being a street photographer is...being able to grab onto all these things that are flying in all these different directions, and capture them in one moment that crystallizes and becomes significant through photography." - Gus Powell, Photographer
In Gus Powell: Photographs at Spartanburg Art Museum, not only his passion, but his incredible facility and skill for capturing this 'significant moment' are clearly on view. Photography in general, and Street Photography in particular, is often described in alchemical terms. Street photographers often talk about searching for the perfect image, or waiting for that image to appear, they talk about moments, fleeting or otherwise, that only a camera can capture or create. In an age where photography and cameras have proliferated more widely than ever before, Gus Powell's works remind us of this almost magical characteristic of the medium.
Gus Powell: Photographs and The Lonely Ones open Thursday, March 15th from 5-8 p.m. with a reception and artist talk, free and open to the public. On March 16th, Powell will give an exclusive in-depth presentation and artist's talk for SAM's ticketed event 'Curator's Notebook.' The exhibition will continue through May 6th, 2018. For more information, visit spartanburgartmuseum.org.
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The Spartanburg Art Museum was founded in 1907 by artists Margaret Law and Josephine Sibley Couper, with the view that "art should not just be the luxury of a few, but the luxury of all." Today, it is one of only a handful of Contemporary Art Museums operating in the Southeastern United States, supporting the creative capacities of the region through an international exhibitions program, youth outreach programs, an art school, a large permanent collection, and an extensive public art program and calendar of community events.
The Spartanburg Art Museum is a regional museum promoting contemporary visual arts by inspiring and engaging people of all ages through exhibitions and education.
Please feel free to contact our Community Development Coordinator and Curator of Collections, Mat Duncan, for more information.
Name: Mat Duncan
Phone: 864.582.7616 ext. 211
Email: mduncan@spartanarts.org
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Let's Not Ruin It by Talking - Gus Powell