Adam Bartos: Yard Sales

From May 30 through July 7, The Drawing Room in East Hampton will present Adam Bartos: Yard Sales, an exhibition of recent color photographs by New York photographer Adam Bartos. In this new work, Bartos turns his lens to random arrangements of objects encountered by chance at tag sales, creating lush, ‘found’ still lifes that resonate both formally and metaphorically. In the spring of 2009, Damiani Editore will publish this body of work in Yard Sale Photographs, Bartos’ fourth monograph.

Taken at close range from an elevated vantage point, Bartos concentrates on fragments of the stuff relegated to boxes in our garages, revealing their hidden aesthetic potential. A pair of weathered skateboards silhouetted against black asphalt littered with grass clippings becomes a compressed formal abstract composition. Likewise, a swirling jumble of aquamarine and black plastic tubes forms a powerful serpentine arabesque, at once striking and foreboding. Akin to early 20th century photographs that celebrated the industrial gleam of the Machine Age, Bartos’ images give dignity to our 21st century castoffs. A close-up of the shimmering coral colored interior of a mid-century suitcase contrasted by a blue rhinestone and white linens within, is one of several photographs that invite the viewer to imagine a personal narrative. Presented in saturated pigment prints on sheets more than three feet tall, the humble beauty of Bartos’ chosen objects becomes monumental.

See below for full press release and selected works.