Photography Exhibition Paul Graham, The Whiteness of the Whale

The Whiteness of the Whale brings together three bodies of work of Paul Graham made in the United States between 1998 and 2011, American Night (1998-2002), a shimmer of possibility (2004-06), and The Present (2009-11). American Night chronicles Graham’s initial impressions of this country and its socioeconomic divisions. Through the combination of nearly invisible, overexposed images and full-color photographs, the work presents contrasting views that suggest contemporary America’s unspoken but omnipresent class divide. The series a shimmer of possibility is the product of journeying and roaming across everyday America. Rather than striving for a single, decisive image, Graham embraces the stuttering process of seeing and recognizing. Unfolding as an American epic of the small and incidental, Graham’s sequences of photographs span gaps of time and place and their interweaving of narrative threads. The Present recalls the tradition of New York street photography, encapsulating the frenetic energy of Manhattan and the constant shifts in attention between people and places on the city’s unruly stage.

Exhibition curator: Christopher McCall.

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