DeCarava Opening, Witkin Gallery, N.Y.C. Possibly 1973 - 1994

Curator: Richard Gordon's "DeCarava Opening, Witkin Gallery, N.Y.C." captures, as the title suggests, the opening of an exhibition, though perhaps not in the way one expects. The gelatin-silver print dates possibly from 1973 to 1994. Editor: Oh, instantly melancholic. It's stark and somber, almost like a stage setting after the actors have left. It certainly makes you think about absences and absences and memories of a night before. Curator: Precisely! Gordon uses black and white photography to frame the ephemera of such events. Observe how the various coats draped over the clothing rack suggest the ghostly presence of the art patrons themselves. Editor: Absolutely, and the textures are striking: the dark, heavy coat, the filigree of the lace shawl. They convey a very tactile sense of a past gathering, while the hat adds this surreal dimension on the hanger. It almost obscures an individual. What remains after such a grand showing, and for whom? Curator: And how do these elements, the hat and the coats, reflect the socio-economic context, don’t you think? This gallery-going milieu of 20th century New York. It makes you consider the labor involved in manufacturing these luxury materials—the textiles, the metal stand itself—and how they’re all assembled for this display. Editor: Very good point. There's a certain intimacy here, isn't there? To be alone among garments—objects designed for adornment, communication of identity in shared spaces, left over for all who served them to disappear from view. And here's an artist looking beyond the performance of art. Curator: Precisely, shifting our focus to the infrastructure of art and culture. And Gordon is reminding us of that system by foregrounding the transient nature of even celebrated art openings. It's about what is produced, displayed, consumed... Editor: What a perfect contrast—something fleeting made permanent, like capturing whispers, but not of the people present. The whole image sings, I’ll never forget that hat and the stand, of what vanishes and why it does. Curator: And the production leaves behind something of significant depth through that attention.