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Ray K. Metzker

SILHOUETTES

ONLINE EXHIBITION

April 7 – May 20, 2022

Black and white photo of a white haired woman walking on a sidewalk in front of a building with suspended lights inside.
Black and white image of a young boy sitting on a bench, a young girl runs in the shadows behind him.
Philadelphia, 1963 Vintage gelatin silver print
Black and white photo of a man in trenchant and defer crossing street, 1960's vintage car with tail fins is in the foreground.
Black and white photo of silhouetted people traversing puddles of melted snow.
Black and white photo of a silhouetted man in a hat traversing puddles of melted snow.
Black and white photo of a woman in sunglasses walking underneath a boardwalk; she is surrounded by the patterns made by light shining through the sales—she scowls back at the camera/photgrapher.
Black and white photo of a woman walking on the sidewalk, her face is totally obscured by shadow.
Black and white photo of a silhouetted young boy in a baseball cap, walking on. crowded sidewalk with his head down.
Black and white photo of silhouetted people on a crowded city sidewalk.

Press Release

The following text has been excerpted, and slightly modified, from the orginal introduction by Laurence Miller to Ray K. Metzker: City Stills, published by Prestel Verlag in 1999, fifteen years before Ray’s passing.

“Beginning in the late 1950s, Ray K. Metzker quietly made remarkable photographs in black and white. Preoccupied with the urban scene for the majority of those years, he relentlessly sought to capture and reveal the nuances, rhythms, textures, and ironies of our urban existence. Simultaneously, he continuously pushed the medium of still photography into previously unexplored pictorial territory. By choosing to work close to the poles of black and white, rather than the traditional middle tones of gray, he liberated himself to identify and extract previously unseen details, and meanings, within city life.

Metzker came out of the Bauhaus tradition, which emphasized formal invention and experimentation. He studied in Chicago at the Illinois Institute of Design, more commonly referred to as 'the Chicago Bauhaus.' There his two most influential teachers were Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, both recognized masters of photography. From Callahan, Metzker learned how to draw with light, to see two-dimensionally- as the camera sees. From Siskind, Metzker learned how to infuse a picture with soul. This combination became the signature quality of Metzker's work: an elegance of design built upon a foundation of deep feelings about man, society, and nature.

As Metzker grew as an artist, his work evolved to become more about feelings than design. His early street scenes were infused with lyrical lines and shapes created by light and shadow. But as he matured, the street became more about theater and the human drama that unfolded on its stage. Shadows evolved from simple forms of darkness to symbols of despair and decay--from concealment to amputation. This is especially true in his work of the early 1980s, in a series he called 'City Whispers', when Metzker felt terribly pessimistic about the deterioration of the urban core, and the nihilism being expressed by many contemporary artists, especially the post-modernists. His street scenes grew dark, figures remained in isolation, and yet, despite those dark feelings, he always felt an optimism and determination to go forward. The result was that each and every print from that period had a passage or detail of glowing light that symbolized hope.”