Paul Kasmin Gallery presents its new exhibition Portraits by James Nares through April 23, 2016. The show features the artist’s second series of moving images following STREET in 2011. Changing his role from street photographer to portraitist, the artist captures moving images of intimates and colleagues in his Manhattan studio. Portrait subjects include Amy Taubin, Walter Robinson, Glenn O’Brien, his daughters, and Jim Jarmusch, among others.
Presented on 40-inch screens set within a frame, the ten films appear as objects off the wall. They are displayed at close to life size on ultra-high definition monitors. At several hundred frames per second and a length of 3 – 20 minutes per film, each moving image reveals an infinite complexity of thoughts, emotions, and movement.
In his work STREET, James Nares recorded people in the streets of Manhattan over a period of one week in September 2011. A moving car captured sixteen hours of footage with a high-definition camera. Slowed and edited down to one hour, the work was scored with music from Thurston Moore, co-founder of Sonic Youth.
As a portraitist, Nares employs a high-speed camera to capture motion in what he terms “micro-moments”. These moments illustrate the relationship between artist and subjects, caught on camera as close-ups and near to life size images. The simple backdrop enables the viewer to focus on the subject, deepening the connection between viewer and work. Using a Troubleshooter 3, a camera developed for monitoring assembly-line efficiency, Nares captures his subjects with infinite precision, allowing for an account with the subject that may owe more to painting than to still photography.
EXHIBITION
James Nares: Portraits
March 3 – April 23, 2016
Paul Kasmin Gallery
293 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10001
United States
http://www.paulkasmingallery.com
