The Ildiko Butler Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center MAP
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
http://ildikobutlergallery.com/

Curators: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock & Joseph Lawton
Essay: Edward Earle
Dates: January 20, 2014 – March 20, 2014
Reception: Tuesday, January 21, 6 – 8 p.m.
Gallery Talk: Wednesday, January 22, 6PM: Edward Earle, Curator, Collections, International Center of Photography

Fordham University, winter 2014
Rhode Island School of Design, fall 2014
Spéos International Photography School Paris/London, winter 2015
Syracuse University, spring 2015
Southeast Museum of Photography, fall 2015

In the 1970’s, the late photographer and educator Gary Metz generated a significant body of work that was very much in the spirit of the times. Metz’s Quaking Aspen: a Lyric Complaint challenged the first 100 years of landscape photography, which had placed a major emphasis on depicting nature as sublime, heroic, and unspoiled. Unlike previous photographers who glorified nature, Metz and his contemporaries wrenched photography out of the national parks and replaced the scenic with the vernacular of the American landscape.

A number of Metz’s colleagues received wide recognition for their similar investigations culminating in the seminal 1975 exhibition, The New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape at the Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House. Gary Metz never received the same level of acknowledgement. Now, 40 years later, his Quaking Aspen: a Lyric Complaint is as powerful and relevant as ever, resonating with current interest in ecology and the everyday landscape.

Quaking Aspen: a Lyric Complaint is a long overdue exhibition of our former teacher’s photographs. We hope that you enjoy the intelligence, formal rigor, and humor found in each of these images. –Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock & Joseph Lawton, Professors, Fordham University

This exhibition is generously supported by Fordham University Art Collections & funded in part from a Fordham University Faculty Challenge Grant. For more information please contact: apicellahit@fordham.edu