PDNB Gallery was three years old when it first hosted a solo exhibition for Keith Carter in 1998. This particular exhibition was a huge success, selling almost 80 photographs, adding fuel to Keith’s trajectory in the art world. Since that show, PDNB Gallery has hosted five solo exhibitions for Keith Carter in its 24-year span.
This year, Keith Carter is celebrating 50 years as an image maker with the release of a large tome of a book, published by University of Texas Press, Keith Carter: Fifty Years, designed by D.J. Stout, with Pentagram.
Keith’s PDNB exhibition, this Spring, highlights works from his prolific career, starting with photographs from his first photo essay, From Uncertain to Blue. The decades in between will include some iconic images, Meagan’s New Shoes (1993), Sleeping Swan (1995), Bird and Ribbon (2007), and Bog Dog (2014).
More recent, unpublished work is also featured, including Mother and Child (2016), Everlast (2016), and Under the Moon (2017). Keith took the portrait in Cuba of the mother and child from the back, she was a Santeria initiate, a Iyabó, with her child, both dressed in white. The boxer image, also shot from behind, was taken in a Miami gym, while the boxer was punching “the bejeeszus” out of a punching bag. Under the Moon is a dark, painterly image of hot-air balloons floating in the sky during pre-dawn hours.
The exhibition spans different styles, from documentary to magical realism. There is a formal sensibility in his choice of not using color in his photography. It is part of his fingerprint. But Keith’s complex toning process gives nuanced color to his images, amplifying the beauty of the print.
Keith Carter: Fifty Years
March 9 – May 4, 2019
Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery (PDNB)
154 Glass St., Ste. 104
Dallas, TX 75207
