Gregory Halpern, at Transformer Station
In early November, Transformer Station opens a major exhibition of photographs by Gregory Halpern, 19 Winters/7 Springs, a show that spans nineteen years’ work made in Halpern’s hometown of Buffalo and the surrounding Erie County in Western New York. Comprising approximately fifty mid- to large-scale color prints and additional tabletop sculptures, the exhibition leads viewers through a poetic visual survey of a landscape over time. Though firmly rooted in a distinct American documentary tradition tackling social stratification, places of labor, the people and neighborhoods of an uncodified, fallow industrial landscape, Halpern’s pictures reach beyond well-defined subjects into the tangential, the poetic and surreal. More importantly for this moment, the work tackles head on broader issues of class and equity among the populations Halpern knows well. With this project, he expands upon his distinctive style of a new form of documentary photography, harnessing poetic rhythms and novelistic detail to the service of telling a great tale of a specific time and place, one that speaks to the larger issues of local and global society. This exhibition will mark a turning point in Halpern’s career, as a summary of experimentation and thoughtful research in a landscape he knows intimately. Born and raised in Buffalo, Halpern received his BA in history and literature at Harvard and his MFA at California College of the Arts. He now teaches in nearby Rochester, bringing him back to his roots.
This full series of photographs will appear in published form with Mack Books in the coming year, marking the fourth publication the artist has published with Mack.
Halpern has received numerous awards and accolades for his past work, including the Aaron Siskind Foundation’s Individual Photographer’s Fellowship and the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, among others. Recent commissions include the SFMOMA/Hermes Foundation/Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation; Soleil Cou Coupé, exhibited at San Francisco MOMA; and in Paris at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation. In 2021, Halpern was included in the show on new documentary styles, But Still, It Turns, organized by photographer Paul Graham at the International Center of Photography (ICP), New York. He will have a solo exhibition, Let the Sun Beheaded Be, also at ICP in 2023. His work is held in many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He is an associate member of Magnum Photos and is represented by Loock Galerie.
TRANSFORMER STATION
1460 West 29th Street
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
transformerstation.org
EVENTS:
Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters/7 Springs through February 5
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