korean      admin    
  PAST ¦¢ CURRENT ¦¢ FUTURE  



 
 

Introduction
About the Artist
Images
Exhibition Info
 


We are pleased to announce the exhibition of Bruce Davidson. The show will be on view from March 1st to May 10th. The photographer who has long been a strong presence in the spectrum of 20th century photography, Bruce Davidson¡¯s main series ¡°Subway¡± welcomes the audiences.


Introduction

The year 2004 was the 100th year anniversary of New York Subway system. To celebrate this event, the Museum of the City of New York had organized an exhibition of three different well-known subway artists: Bruce Davidson, Camilo Jose Vergara, and Sam Hollenshead. Among these artists, Bruce Davidson¡¯s ¡°Subway: photographs by Bruce Davidson¡± was in spotlight. His photographs guided the audiences to travel back to the underground of the 1980s. The photographer offers the encounter with the past through the pictures that are already part of the history, and the audiences reminisce themselves in both past and present through this pleasant experience.

Gallery Lumiere President Mi Li Choi was invited to Bruce Davidson¡¯s house and interviewed him, while she visited New York to attend the 25th AIPAD(the Association of International Photography Art Dealers). The artist was extremely excited to hear that thirty of his Subway photographs will be exhibited in Korea. Three times a day, the audience will be able to hear the conversation with him along with gallery talks.


From 1979 to 1980, Bruce Davidson¡¯s camera lens give a steady gaze at New York subway filled with different ethnics. It closes up to the world we live in, and people who are surviving through. An embracing couple with big smiles, expressions with energy and confidence, tensed faces, violent and outrageous actions¡¦His works elaborate dark, rough, and dangerous but beautiful reality in visual language.

Bruce Davidson explained why he took pictures of Subway; ¡°When in the subway, what is beautiful appears bestial, and what is bestial becomes beautiful¡¦People in the subway, their flesh juxtaposed against the metallic surfaces, and even the hollow darkness itself, moved me to uncover a beauty that goes unnoticed by passengers, who are themselves trapped underground, hide behind protective masks, closed off and unseeing.¡± As a successful documentary photographer, the reality in subway is a world within a world and the individuals in the subway became appropriate subjects of the artist¡¯s personal passion.

Davidson began to explore the underground world in 1979. He traveled through more than 600 miles in the subway in dawn or late at night. He captures the stark, sullen, and true individuals following their destinations. Through nasty but beautiful world of underground, his images of life on subway express the beauty and the beast, light and dark, and mortality.

Episodes (from Subway, 2003)
Bruce, after having been mugged twice on the subway, agreed to accompany undercover police to get the picture of a mugger in action. One cop dressed as a Hassidic with a gold chain around his neck pretending to be asleep. Bruce sat on the other end of the train as they waited past stop after stop. A crook come into the car and decides to snatch the chain. The undercover cop springs into action, apprehending the thief and with one shot Bruce captures the moment.

¡ã top

About the Artist
Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1933, Bruce Davidson discovered photography at the age of ten. He was given the freedom to explore the streets of the city alone with his camera. A local commercial photographer taught him technical skills including printing and lighting. He attended the Rochester Institute of Technology and continued his studies at Yale University. Later on, he was drafted into the Army and stationed in Paris. He met Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the foundation members of Magnum Photos. After military service, he freelanced with LIFE for a year and joined the Magnum Agency in 1958.

Davidson¡¯s major bodies of work are ¡®The Dwarf¡¯, which follows a lonely clown in a traveling circus, and ¡®Brooklyn Gang¡¯, which depicts the isolation, tension, and vitality of a group of New York teenagers. With the Guggenheim Fellowship, He documented the Civil Rights Movement in the South (¡®Time of Change, The Civil Rights Movement¡¯). In 1963, he had his first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.
Davidson was presented with the first Fellowship from NEA (The National Endowment for the Arts) for a project to photograph the inhabitants of a rundown tenement block in Spanish Harlem on an ¡®eye-to-eye¡¯ level. (¡®East 100th Street¡¯) This Modern classic work was exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in 1970. ¡®Central Park¡¯ was a four-year encounter with the convergence of humanity, nature, and the city that grew into an epic homage.



Selected Solo Exhibition
2004/05 ¡®Subway: Photographs by Bruce Davidson,¡± Museum of the City of New York
2004 ¡®Subway¡¯, Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY
2004 ¡®Subway¡¯, Hermes Gallery, NY, 2004
2003 Greg Kucera, Seattle
2003 ¡®Inside/Outside: Photographs from the artist¡¯s personal archive¡¯, Howard
Greenberg Gallery, NY
2003 ¡°Time of Change¡±, International Center of Photography, NY
1999 ¡®Bruce Davidson: The Brooklyn Gang, 1959¡¯, International Center of Photography Uptown, NY
1997 ¡®Bruce Davidson: American Photography¡¯, Edwyn Houk Gallery, NY
1988 East 100th Street, The Cafeteria, and Subway exhibited at the Smithsonian
1983 International Center of Photography
Musee Reattu, Arles, France
Galerie municipale du Chateau d¡¯eau, Toulouse, France
1979 Retrospective exhibition at the International Center of Photography
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA
Fnac, Montparnasse, Paris
Galerie Delpire, Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris
1978 International Center of Photography, New York
1970 Museum of Modern Art, New York
1965 Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA
1963 Museum of Modern Art, New York




Selected Group Exhibitions
2004 ¡®Magnum¡¯s New Yorkers¡¯, Museum of the City of New York




Selected Awards
1998 Open Society Institute Individual Fellowship
1967 The first grant for photography from the National Endowment for the Arts
1962 Guggenheim Fellowship Award




Selected Publications
-
-
-


-
-
-
-
-
-
Subway, St Ann¡¯s Press, 2003 (re-issue)
East 100th Street, St. Ann¡¯s Press, Los Angeles, 2003 (re-issue)
Time of Change, Civil Rights Photographs, 1961-1965, St. Ann¡¯s Press, Los Angeles, 2002
Portraits, Aperture, New York, 1999
Brooklyn Gang, Twin Palms, 1998
Central Park, Aperture, New York, 1995
Subway, New York, Knopf, 1984
Bruce Davidson Photographs, Simon & Schuster, 1970
East 100th Street, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1970




Selected Collections
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
George Eastman House, Rochester, New York
International Center of Photography, New York
Jeht Foundation, New York
La Salle Bank, Chicago
Topan¡¯s ¡°Masters of Photography¡±, Japan
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Museum Ludwig Koln, Germany
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Smithsonian, Washington D.C.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Yale University Art Gallery
ASMP Photographer of the Year
Eastman Kodak Reedy Award
American Film Festival Award in Fiction
10 Best Films by the American Film Institute
¡ã top

Images
** Bruce Davidson¡¯s Images are under copyright.



Subway (youth with bare torso wearing a cross), 1980
C-print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper; printed 2004, 20 x 30 inches
Copyright Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery




Subway (women in summer dresses on platform), 1980
C-print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper; printed 2005, 20 x 30 inches
Copyright Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery




Subway (young girls around pole wearing nail polish), 1980
C-print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper; printed 2004, 20 x 30 inches
Copyright Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery





Subway (woman outside of car over river), 1980
C-print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper; printed 2004, 20 x 30 inches
Copyright Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery




Subway (man with band-aid on forehead), 1980
C-print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper; printed 2005, 20 x 30 inches
Copyright Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery



Subway (five young men on platform), 1980
C-print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper; printed 2005, 20 x 30 inches
Copyright Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery



Subway (man asleep on F train), 1980
C-print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper; printed 2005, 20 x 30 inches
Copyright Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery
¡ã top


Exhibition Information

Lecture one
March 19, 2005 (Saturday), 3-5 pm
¡°Bruce Davidson¡¯s Photographs, with Passionate Eyes¡±
Park, Ki-Ho (Photographer, Bruce Davidson¡¯s former assistant)


Lecture two
March 26, 2005 (Saturday), 3-5 pm
¡°Sentimental Documentary Photographer, Bruce Davidson¡±
Kang, Yongsuk (Professor, Photography Department, Paeche Institute of the Arts)
  ¡Ø Seats are limited. Please reserve your seat in advance.
      For reservation: 517-2134 / 2176   Fee: 20,000 won


Gallery Hours
- Tuesday-Saturday 10:30 am-19:00 pm
- Sunday 10:30 am-18:00 pm
  (Closed on Mondays)


Admission Fees
- General Public: 5,000 won, Students (with ID): 4,000 won
- People over 65, Handicapped people: Free


Gallery Talks
- Tuesday-Sunday: 1, 3, 5 pm in Korean
- Saturday-Sunday: 4 pm in English
¡ã top





  All artworks are copyright of the respective artists or etstate
All other material ¨Ï Gallery Lumiere. All rights reserved
E-mail : Lumiereseoul@hotmail.com