Ari Marcopoulos : Time Motion
July 10, 2021 - August 28, 2021
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 10, 2021 3-5 PM
ARCHIVE/PROJECT SPACE PRESENTS ARI MARCOPOULOS
The Archive/Project Space, is pleased to announce the exhibition, Time Motion, by artist, photographer, film and bookmaker, Ari Marcopoulos.
Marcopoulos will present many large photographs and several films.
About this show the artist has said: “This exhibition is a continuation of my book-making practice. It includes a few earlier pictures that resonate with recent memories, but mainly chronicles the things I have seen over the past 14 months when the world seemed to crack and contract with uncertainty and fear. I was moved by the strength and suffering I saw in so many people around me. They are mostly images of my first trip abroad in 14 months alongside portraits of friends, neighbors, strangers, trees, light, reflections, stains, limbs, faces. Blank fields, immediate choices, sequencing experiences cinematically, a continuation of a body of work always and already in progress and a reminder that neither a photograph nor I can ever totally catch up with time.” Ari Marcopoulos
Since arriving in New York from his native Holland in 1979, Ari Marcopoulos has documented the diverse subcultures of American youth. His photographs and videos depict the brash vitality of underground music and the rebellious athleticism of extreme sports. In a body of work that demonstrates a rare empathy for his subjects, who are almost always young men or boys, Marcopoulos neither patronizes tentative expressions of identity nor romanticizes youthful freedom. His straightforward portraits and lush snapshots capture everyday moments of beauty and anxiety, becoming as he says, “something that just stands for life lived.” - 2010 Whitney Museum Biennial catalog.
Marcopoulos has produced as many as 200 books and limited edition zines.
With little formal training, Marcopoulos started printing Andy Warhol’s black and white photographs and photographing the artists and performers active in New York’s downtown scene in the 1980s. Marcoupolos developed a pervasive sensitivity to the nuances of subcultural style …. of hip-hop artists and skateboarders from the 1990’s. ”
An earlier body of work documents an international group of young snowboarders.
Travelling with them around the globe, from Iran to Switzerland to Japan, he has captured their activities and daily rituals on film, deftly describing the lives of these young men who regularly defy not only social conventions but also physical possibility, and even gravity itself. Marcopoulos shows both their collective and individual experiences gathering at large outdoor and indoor competitions, moving en masse to techno music, killing time in anonymous hotel rooms, and plummeting down dangerous peaks. “Snowboarding is a rich culture because the riders know and feel and assess both extremes - what it means to be isolated and self-reliant, and what it means to be in an independent group of people,'' observes Marcopoulos. - 2002 Whitney Biennial catalog.
Ari Marcopoulos is represented by Fergus McCaffrey in New York and Tokyo, and Galerie Frank Elbaz in Paris.