Laurence Miller Gallery is pleased to present RAY K. METZKER, Intimations, a selection of over forty photographs from his recently concluded European retrospective LIGHT LINES, which originated in 2007 at the Musee de l'Eysee, Lausanne, then travelled to the Preus Museum, Norway and to Galleria Carla Sozzani, Milan in 2008.
A European sensibility permeates this selection. With a greater emphasis on narrative and the human spirit, the exhibition explores Metzker's delicate sense of design as he embraces the details of his surroundings while brooding over the disconnect and alienation often experienced in urban settings. Images from Munich, Innsbruck, Frankfurt, Lisbon and Marseilles from 1960-61 set the tone, such as the female pedestrian in Innsbruck surrounded by a confusing array of painted arrows suggesting she go this way - no - that way.
Several images from Metzker's early 1980's series City Whispers will be shown, as anonymous urban dwellers glide through contrasting beams of brilliant light and impenetrable shadow. His 1983 image from Philadelphia of a walking man followed closely by a woman, adjacent but never together, demonstrates Metzker's exquisite ability to caress with light while dividing with shadow.
Metzker acknowledges the early influence of two European photographers: Josef Sudek for his gentle and contemplative imagery as an incentive to explore one's immediate surroundings, and Bill Brandt for the revelation that not everything must be in focus and tonally correct to instill an image with power. Metzker's late '70's series Pictus Interruptus makes this clear.
RAY K. METZKER: Intimations will be our 20th one-person exhibition featuring the work of this 79 year old master photographer.
