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 Laurence
Miller
Gallery inaugurates its fall season on September 6 when Burk Uzzle fills
the entire space with his unique view of the persons, places and
oddities that define the singular and diverse character of America. The main gallery will
feature Uzzle’s first series in color, taken from his new monograph
Just
Add Water; in the smaller room, the carbon prints of the home of the
assemblage artist, John Herrmann; and on a singular wall twelve iconic,
rare, vintage prints taken at Woodstock during the summer of love. The
disparate nature of these three visions is best understood in Vicki Goldberg’s introduction to the book:
He’s conducted a visual love affair with America
for years. Uzzle likes her funny face and doesn’t want her to change a
hair for him. He sympathizes with her bad moods, her tragedies, her
rather glaring imperfections, her obstreperous beauty, her unlikely
aspirations. He is as fond of, and amused by, a bush having a really bad
hair day at the side of the road as he is of a tree that ate a bicycle
and couldn’t digest it.
Burk Uzzle grew up in the south, began working at the age of 14, got his
first full-time job as a photographer at age 17, became LIFE’s
youngest contract photographer at age 23, and has twice been elected president of
Magnum. In spite of, or because of, his intrepid nature—he has
traveled throughout
America
and
Europe
many times—he has said it is the small towns and ordinary places that
interest him most. In Just Add Water: America in
Color, Uzzle shares his love of and fondness for the American
landscape and her people in an extraordinary way, by photographing the
most unlikely people and things: a wall of gum in
Seattle, a plastic Santa on a porch in
Florida, POPEYE spelled out in wreaths in a cemetery in North Carolina.
The carbon prints of John Herrmann’s home are the 21st
century version of a 19th century process, the most truly
permanent and tonally vibrant of all extant color processes. The
richness of their production enhances the extraordinary quality and
quirkiness of the imagery to make for a truly astounding rendition of
the artist’s obsessive collections-- in full, living, breathing,
glorious color.
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