News
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Havana Rhythms
Exhibition on View September 17, 2014 – January 15, 2016 Gallery Talk: Monday, September 21 at 12:00pm LAFAYETTE COLLEGE Lass Gallery, Skillman Library 710 Sullivan Road, Easton, PA 18042 EASTON, PA - This September Lafayette College in Easton, PA will present Havana Rhythms, an exhibition of photographs created by David Katzenstein on a recent visit to Havana, Cuba. These striking images will be on view in the Lass Gallery at Skillman Library from September 17, 2015 to January 15, 2016. There will be a gallery talk on Monday, September 21 at 12:00pm. Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past - Berenice Abbott Over the past 80 years, Havana has drawn important photographers who explored this vibrant city through their distinct visions. In the 1930s, Walker Evans captured the graphic quality of men and women against white buildings plastered with advertisements. Henri Cartier-Bresson found the political “decisive moment” in his 1963 photographs of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara interacting with the people of Cuba. Abbot’s quotation speaks to the work of these photographers, who caught their subjects at a significant moment in time. In December 2014, as cold-war hostilities isolating Cuba were poised to come to a historic end, David Katzenstein photographed Havana’s sounds, colors, and energy. Unlike Evans’ and Cartier-Bresson’s black and white images, Katzenstein has found a musical quality using compositions of raw colors in a wide variety of subjects. From these photographs, we feel the powerful rhythms that people create while interacting on the Malecón, as colorful, bulbous cars race through the city, mirrored by curio shop objects, juxtaposed like musical notes that quietly echo their revolutionary past. Today the photographs of the dancers and musicians pulsate with the timeless energy of the Cuban tradition. Through his work, we see the present becoming the past in a new light. Katzenstein captures the brilliant reds, distinctive blues and glittering greens that jump off the cars and objects that surround the people on the streets of Havana. These colors create a lyrical pattern in which the eye hears the sounds of the city’s soul: a sensuous, sweaty, fading song along the ocean. - text and curation by Richard Grosbard
All My Jazz
Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 22, 2014 6-8pm Open daily 4-11pm, October 20, 2014 - January 16, 2015 Bar Thalia @ Symphony Space 2537 Broadway at 95th St New York, NY 10025 NEW YORK, NY — This fall New York’s noted uptown performing arts center Symphony Space will present All My Jazz, an exhibition spanning over two decades of jazz photographs by David Katzenstein. These striking images will be on view in the Bar Thalia from October 20, 2014 to January 16, 2015. The opening reception on Wednesday, October 22 between 6-8pm will feature members of the Fat Cats, the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance youth orchestra. All My Jazz grew out of Katzenstein’s love of the musical idiom and his relationship over the years with some of the foremost artists in Jazz, including Branford Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Arturo O’Farrill. His decision to primarily document the scene in black and white is in keeping with a long tradition and adds a timelessness feel to the body of work. All My Jazz is curated by Dashbe: Art Collective, a project founded by David Katzenstein and Sherrie Nickol to present their varied photographic collections for site-specific exhibitions and installations. Their work has been presented at public and private institutions around the United States.
Black on White
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 12, 2014 6-8pm Open daily 4-11pm, June 12 - September 12, 2014 Bar Thalia @ Symphony Space 2537 Broadway at 95th St New York, NY 10025 NEW YORK, NY — Symphony Space will present the exhibition Black on White at Bar Thalia by photographers David Katzenstein and Sherrie Nickol, Black on White is the first exhibition conceived and curated by Dashbe: Art Collective, a project founded by Katzenstein and Nickol to present their varied photographic collections for site-specific exhibitions and installations. Their work has been presented at public and private institutions around the United States. The Black on White series grew out of Katzenstein’s and Nickol’s larger collaboration, The Citizen Project, where they photographed 2500 people in their NOHO studio over a three-year period. These silhouettes serve as a study about shape and form. When the photographers backlit their subjects, gestures and movements became simplified and magnified at the same time. Shown together, the silhouettes take on a cohesiveness as their subjects are flattened against the same white plane. PRESS CONTACT - John Lee / John Lee Media / johnleemedia@gmail.com / 917 653-3444 This exhibition is made possible through the support of the Isaiah Sheffer Fund for New Initiatives