Art & Exhibitions
At Foley Gallery, Leon Borensztein Combines Portraits and the Modern Monochrome
THE DAILY PIC: Their photo background looks like a Rothko stuck behind each sitter.
Blake Gopnik
Share This Article
THE DAILY PIC (#1352): These two photos were shot by Leon Borensztein when he was a journeyman portrait photographer in the 1980s, paid to take peoples’ pictures in their homes. On top of the standard color shots he did for his clients, he also took some black and whites, for himself, where he included the wider setting he was shooting in. A good number of those images are now on view at Foley Gallery in New York.
There’s a lot to say about the subjects of these pictures, and the role photography plays in their social status. But what struck me most, in seeing an entire wall full of Borensztein’s prints, was the strange square of fabric that migrates from image to image. It felt like a rigorous modernist monochrome, by Yves Klein or Mark Rothko, determined to occupy each and every space that it enters – but failing each time to drown out the sights of normal life.
Which means it also stands for the entire utopian modernist project, and its failure to tidy up the mess that humans live in.
For a full survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.
Article topics
