Roe Ethridge’s photography encompasses a study of genres, the recent history of photography and his own practice as a fashion photographer. Like Josh Smith in painting and Kelley Walker in Appropriation Art, Roe Ethridge belongs to a generation that has extricated itself from the straitjacket of progress and modern changes and managed to open a new chapter in the field of photography.
Landscape photography and still lifes, original images and images borrowed from the print media, abstractions and illustrations are placed side by side to create a recognizable world which moves freely from one photographic genre to another – from documentary to the most formal photography.
In the last ten years Roe Ethridge has covered all the genres – nudes, still lifes, cityscapes, country scenes, portraits, collages, etc., thereby creating a body of work that strives for consistency by exploring sensibility so as to arrive at a powerful conceptual project. Ethridge’s work has been shown in a number of gallery exhibitions and has also been included in group shows, like the MoMA’s exhibition of New Photography 2010. However, to date there has never been a retrospective devoted exclusively to his work and one that provides an overview of the consistency which is central in his extraordinarily diverse range of subjects and working methods.
The exhibition covers several series of works produced by Ethridge in the last ten years and comprises original prints and other work on loan from American and European collections. The exhibition starts from two important paradigms: genres and photographic approach. The dynamic way the works are hung, juxtaposing diverse photographic genres with highly experimental forms of photography, draws attention to the strong undercurrents present in his work.
The exhibition aims to provide insight into the way Ethridge has managed to give a new take on photography, thereby cementing its place on the contemporary art scene.
Born in 1969, Roe Ethridge studied photography at the Atlanta College of Art. He now lives and works in New York.
Curator: Anne Pontégnie