Ray K. Metzker: Atlantic City Exhibition

Laurence Miller Gallery Exhibition Jan 29 - March 20, 2004

Ray K. Metzker Atlantic City

Laurence Miller Gallery will feature Atlantic City, photographs by Ray K. Metzker, from January 29 through March 20, 2004. These twenty-four rarely shown photographs reveal Metzker as a master of nuance, light and shadow while highlighting his skill in creating a poetic body of work based on collected and related moments.

In a series of fourteen photographs shot on the beach in Atlantic City, in the height of summertime, Metzker’s subject is the delight of the ordinary. Everyday people twist, entwine, bask and recline in the sand and surf, becoming, as Metzker has noted, "inhabitants of the beach—creatures of the sand." Any one of these photographs makes a figure study, but seen in series they become a rhythmic take, a cosmic riff, on a melody of a summer day. A related series of eight photographs shot under the boardwalk at Atlantic City depends upon the power of light to shape the ordinary beachgoer, replete with chairs and beach bags and towels, into an iconic image of everyman en route to the ocean. These photographs are shrouded in subtle grays and velvet blacks, and convey a sense of mystery that demands the viewer to look more and more closely to experience what Metzker’s camera reveals.

1) Atlantic City, 1966	2) Atlantic City, 1966	3) Atlantic City, 1966	4) Atlantic City, 1966
5) Atlantic City, 1966	6) Atlantic City, 1966	7) Atlantic City, 1966	8) Atlantic City, 1966
9) Atlantic City, 1977	10) Atlantic City, 1968	11) Atlantic City, 1969	12) Atlantic City, 1975
13) Atlantic City, 1969	14) Atlantic City, 1970	15) Atlantic City, 1971	16) Atlantic City, 1971