Press : Laurence Miller Gallery

Review: Philippe Halsman: Jump 5/24/10
by Roberta Smith

"There is a sublime silliness to Halsman's images that can make you laugh or at least smile regardless of how often you see them. They may offer incontrovertible proof of Schiller's claim that "all art is dedicated to joy." Evidently the simple act of getting off the ground requires giving in to something like joy. You have to let go."

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Feature: Philippe Halsman: Jump 4/02/10

"New Yorkers jumped at the chance to see the opening of Philippe Halsman's extended Photography series last night at the Laurence Miller Gallery."

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Review: Denis Darzacq: Hyper 3/08/10

"The work is slick and flawlessly controlled but exhilarating—seeing it is like witnessing the invention of some new indoor sport."

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Review: Denis Darzacq: Hyper 1/21/10

"Denis Darzacq’s candy-colored photographs of young men and women gliding, floating, and falling through French grocery store aisles have a sort of cinematic quality. He gets at that Matrix-like tension, balancing frenetic energy with an ethereal (and sometimes eerie) sense of calm."

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Review: Ray K. Metzker | AutoMagic 12/14/09

A survey of photographs involving automobiles provides an ideal opportunity to study the terrific sweep and intelligence of Metzker’s inventiveness. Made between 1958 and 2009, the black-and-white work often falls between representation and abstraction: cars are reduced to gleaming outlines and bulky shapes within graphic compositions. The largest and most recent pictures treat their reflective surfaces as fun-house mirrors, distorting the surrounding streetscapes. But earlier images, on a more intimate scale, are also more engaging; evidence of an eye always alert to moments when the ordinary turns sublime. Breaking with the abstract impulse are several fine photographs of people in their cars that suggest a whole other line of inquiry. View exhibition

Review: The Abstracted Landscape December 2009

This well-thought-out group show considered contemporary photographers' (Bialobrzeski, Couturier, Ming, Shibata) differing approaches to capturing built and natural landscapes...

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Review: Helen Levitt | A Memorial Tribute 6/01/09

The great New York street photographer, who died in March, at the age of ninety-five, left behind an extraordinary and endlessly engaging body of work, the best known examples of which were made in the nineteen-forties. Children were Levitt's most famous subjects, and her vivacious pictures of urchins at play spark this memorial show. But she was just as alert to the presence of crones and codgers on tenement stoops and-- in a rarely exhibited series taken with Walker Evans's camera-- riders on the subway. The complete range of her activity is laid out in a wonderful room of very small early prints, shown here for the first time, ample evidence of Levitt's shrewd, sympathetic, unblinking eye. View exhibition

Favorite photographers under the radar
Vince Aletti, Modern Painters April 2009

Bruce Wrighton died a virtual unknown in 1988 at the age of 38.
He had a show in 2006 at Laurence Miller Gallery that I didn't remember, but another show there this past year hasn't left my mind. He took straightforward and rather artless color photos of people and places, but it's the portraits that really hooked me... View exhibition

Private Eyes | Laurence Miller Private Collection Debutes in Oviedo, Spain 3/26/09

Private Eyes offers 120 images gathered by Laurence Miller, the gallery owner who rejected modas. The exhibition presents almost 60 works by artists who were recruited from the nineteenth century to today... more

"To make these works required head and heart"
Read full interview with Laurence Miller

Review: 25th Anniversary Celebration 2/09/09

One of the city's longest running photography galleries salutes itself with an exhibition that provides a quick sketch of its idiosyncratic history. Two of the gallery's prime attractions, Helen Levitt and Ray K. Metzker, open the show with a pair of quiet knockouts that slip between representation and abstraction. They have strong support from Michael Spano, Stephane Couturier, Val Telberg, and other reliable Miller mainstays, but what keeps the show popping is a few surprises from the inventory, including a Polaroid of shape-shifter Yasumasa Morimura as Greta Garbo, Bruce Wrighton's unexpectedly lovely color shot of a public bathroom , and Yasuhiro Ishimoto's heady evocation of the Playboy Club circa 1950. View exhibition

New Yorker

Bruce Wrighton | Through An Open Window 10/13/08

It may be overstating the case to compare him to Walker Evans, William Eggleston, or Diane Arbus, but Wrighton, who died in 1988, at the age of 38, is a real discovery, The color portraits, scruffy interiors, and small-town streetscapes here were made toward the end of his life, in and around his home base of Binghamton, New York. The work is unpretentious but not quite artless, the portraits unvaryingly frontal and about as flattering.
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Henri Cartier-Bresson | Helen Levitt 6/12/08

Ah, friends" was my reaction as I stepped out of the elevator and into the Laurence Miller Gallery to see its current show, "Henri Cartier-Bresson and Helen Levitt: Side By Side." One of the pleasures of visiting galleries and museums is the possibility of discovering new photographers... Another pleasure is revisiting works which you are familiar- sometimes long familiar - and reaffirming your initial appreciation... Cartier-Bresson's photography is virtuosic, while Levitt's emotional acuity repeatedly catches us in the gut...
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Art & Antiques

Post-War Perspectives 1945-1960 March 2008

More than 50 photograph taken between 1950 and 1960 showcase major trends , developments and public mind-sets that existed in the world during the mid-20th century. Images by Helen Levitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and others provide a jarring juxtapostion between the prosperity enjoyed in the United States following World War II and the anxiety, despair and alienation that existed in Europe and Japan during the arduous reconstruction and recovery process.

Burk Uzzle | Just Add Water 10/10/07
by Michael Killeen

We're back on a road trip through America with Burk Uzzle... His current exhibition at the Laurence Miller Gallery in New York takes its title, "Just Add Water," from a photograph of a Texas dock, ready with water slide, patio furniture and barrel barbeque, standing high above a farmer's drained pond... Uzzle captures incongruities but doesn't play up the bizarre. Naturally occurring eccentricities, in a landscape, roadside or interiors, are welcomed...
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