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I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city, Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name! Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient… In Susan Wides’ new series, Mannahatta, she offers a view of New York that is at once both recognizable and disorienting. With rare permission to shoot from roofs of new skyscrapers where most of us can never go, Wides allows us to see the city almost as a physical entity of complicated tensions. While certain photographs intentionally evoke earlier artists who depicted modern city culture, we also experience a New York of heightened color and distortions of space, scale and light. The city appears before us, dissolving into shapes of light and energy, presenting an uncanny perspective. Mannahatta originated from a photo-shoot commissioned by New York magazine. In this special issue, Wides’ unfamiliar ways of capturing familiar sites were recognized as one the reasons to love New York right now. “…Her photographs are fluid rather than static; Her lens swings, tilts and pans, giving the images a dynamism that they share with the city they capture, itself an ongoing act of imagination.” Wides’ Mobile Views project, begun in 1997, employs the manipulation of the 4x5 camera to reimagine the cultural and social landscape. Mannahatta continues this project as Wides explores the current building boom, the largest in the history of New York City. Wides brings fresh insight to a fascinating time in the city. For further information, please contact the gallery.
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