ALIFE PRESENTS and KINZ + TILLOU FINE ART are proud to announce CLAYTON PATTERSON, L.E.S. CAPTURED, a co-produced exhibition that focuses on Patterson’s 30-year documentation of the dramatically transitioned Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. The exhibition features select photographs; a digital showcase of Patterson’s Front Door portraits; “The Documentarian”, a short from the widely acclaimed recent feature-length documentary, Captured, a film by Ben Solomon, Dan Levin, Jenner Furst.
A documentarian by choice and community activist by circumstance, Patterson’s career spans 30 years of dedicated and compulsive photographic capture of the neighborhood and its community. From documenting the 1988 Tompkins Square Park Police Riot-which earned him both jail-time and Oprah airtime-to photographing individuals posed in front of his gallery door on Essex Street, Patterson is the eyes of the Lower East Side.
His massive body of work is akint to an anthropologic visual catalog of record. The pictures are strikingly honest depictions of Lower East Side kids, families, thugs, lovers, drug dealers and users, disenfranchised artists and others that would otherwise disappear from collective memory. They effectively preserve the rich culture that embodied the neighborhood during a socially and economically depressed period of New York City and as it experiences rapid gentrification. They show an unedited humanity upfront and close-up. Each picture represents a door to a fascinating story, one that he can annotate with a sharp recollection and sensitive perspective.
In his Front Door book Patterson states: “For me, taking the front door photos was magic. It was like touching someone’s soul. We were sharing a moment in time together, in a very intimate and deep way. I always felt a union, a deep connection and respect for my subjects. We were one. We were exploring our inner selves to each other. I was saving a presence, a spirit, the image of a person from the moment, the here and now, for the future. All of us were the Lower East Side.”
SEPTEMBER 24 – NOVEMBER 8, 2009
ALIFE PRESENTS
157 RIVINGTON STREET
NEW YORK NY 10002
T. 212 253 2180
Tues – Sun 12noon – 7pm
ARTIST’S OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, FROM 7 TO 10PM
