We are thrilled to be able to feature an installation of vintage gelatin silvers from Ursula Schulz-Dornburg’s series, Ploschtschad Wosstanija, Uprising Square, St. Petersburg Metro Station, 2005. For this unique installation the text panel directs the viewer to reflect deeper on the three benign scenes of subway riders coming and going on escalators at the Uprising Square Metro stop in St. Petersburg, Russia. The unassuming public are intersecting a moment in their history that redefined the country for almost a century. As the text panel notes Uprising Square was where the most important nonviolent protests took place that leads to the Russian Revolution. Schulz-Dornburg activates the innocuous public space through a few sentences, unveiling a rich morsel of historical information to reflect on as we address current political events. For Paris Photo, the artist has created two installations for us to offer.

Since 1971 Ursula Schulz-Dornburg has focused her creative vision on the melding of time, history, humanity and the landscape within the photographic image. From the early markings of civilization in her Mesopotamia and Iraq Wetlands series, to the modern metro hub in St. Petersburg, Russia, Schulz- Dornburg unwinds history.

Joachim Brohm is known for being one of the young German photo artists using color photography in the early 1970s in the style of the American New Topographic movement. His early work, Ruhr Valley, combined urban landscapes dotted with people creating a wonderful tension between the vastness of nature and the small presence of human beings industriously engaging in the landscape.

Featured here is a rarely exhibited vintage sequence from a series created in Japan. They come out at a time in the early 2000s when Brohm is experimenting with the use of sequencing, grids and collage. This triptych along with several other works captures fragmented but connected moments of urban Japan. Brohm’s featured prints are the only copies made from the original negatives which have since been damaged.

Robert Cumming’s has long been a pivotal influence on the contemporary photographic community. The 8 x 10-inch contact prints made over a ten plus years, 1968 – 1980, in Los Angeles, mark a pivotal door opening as the photo medium redefined its focus as Cumming’s uses his 8 x 10 view camera to capture his humorous and smart sculptural installations.

Besides featuring the well-known diptych, Black and White/White and Black Rope Trick, 1978, printed by Cumming in 2020 – a perfect example of the artists fascination with exploring positive and negative space and illusions in sculptural staged installations; we also will have a hand-picked selection of signed, vintage 8 x 10 inch contact prints from the artists archive such as, Operable Cardboard Cameras, 1979 and the diptych, Broken Screen or It Was Around Dinner When the Ball Went through the Screen, 1974, among others.

We are excited to present a piece from Christina Fernandez’s brand-new series, Suburban Nightscapes, the first section of a two-part series inspired by her son graduating high school and her role as sole parent and caretaker changing as Diego ventures out as a young man into the world. The domestic scenes, which recreate simple moments of her son’s life, hanging with friends in their Los Angeles based suburban neighborhood. The in progress, second part, will be paired with the artist reflection at she redefines her vision of herself. Once again, Fernandez entices us into her rich story telling exploring her Chicana roots.

The exceptional feature in Suburban Nightscapes is that Fernandez appropriated or layered the lighting of Steven Spielberg’s 1980s classic, ET, onto each image through a film editing software program. This appropriated use of movie-based lighting is a fascinating new way of creating a strange mix of familiarity and nostalgia in a still image. The presentation without formal framing increases the cinematic feel of the night images as she creates a feeling of looking at a small movie screen.

CJ Heyliger returns to his ongoing American desert series, Heliotropes, with a new, two element work, Zabriskie Variations, 2023. One of the fascinating parts of Heyliger’s discipline is that all his image manipulation is made on the negative while in his large format, 4 x 5 camera. For this work, the sun and the moon bifurcate each image through manipulating the camera’s lens board. The exposed negative is then developed in 19th century film processing formulas that allow the artist to create unique effects that one sees on the final image. It is a brilliant analog based investigation of light, exposure, chemistry and chance, creating images no one can duplicate.

Complimenting the above light tracing is a petite assemblage of three paper negatives made in camera, direct exposure of the sun. It is Heyliger’s first venture into paper negative based work that embraces the non-narrative photographic process but layered with historical references and processes.

From 1992 to 1995, Ron Jude became fascinated with American businessmen in the financial hubs of Atlanta, Chicago, New York and San Francisco thus becoming the series Executive Model. The series captured details of the backs and hands of random businessmen as they walked down the street. As a young man in 90s America, Jude found himself immersed yet estranged from the bustling world of finance. Barely making ends meet as a young artist this corporate world of money seemed way out of reach. As Jude notes after finishing the series, ‘I had every advantage one could possibly have — I was an educated white guy living in America — and yet, as someone who was raised in a rural, working-class environment, these guys who were driving the economy and reaping the awards seemed utterly foreign to me’.

We chose to reintroduce Executive Model, a series Jude created 30 years ago, to reflect on the mastery of image making that Jude developed and continues to present, where a collection of mundane, fragmented images is woven into his signature story telling style. The images selected are from a unique set of six prints made for a past exhibition.

As part of the galleries interest with the landscape and the construction of illusions, we are delighted to present two young contemporary artists from the Chicano/a community and who were a part of the group show El Cuerpo: The (Performing) Body and the Photographic Stage, 2024, curated by artist Christina Fernandez.