New York Sleeps - Christopher Thomas

"This is New York! Or are they dream worlds, chimeras, inventions, or perhaps testimony to a past era? Viewers are astonished, recognizing the places and getting lost in memories. A city of silence, beyond the turbulence of everyday life, a metropolis with no people, as if a spell had been cast on it: Grand Central Station, Fifth Avenue, the Flatiron Building, Katz's Restaurant, the Brooklyn Bridge - familiar, but never seen this way before.
When we unsuspectingly removed these photographs from a drawer in his studio - seven views, all taken in 2001 (before September 11), softly sketched as a result of long exposure times, printed on deckle-edge paper with the streaky border of a Polaroid-we urged the photographer to return to New York, where he had lived now and again over an extended period, in order to continue the series. Over two more years, including stays in each of the seasons, he produced a portfolio of photographs, of which the present volume presents a selection of nearly eighty works.
With his clear idea of shooting techniques, composition, light, formats, and his dispensing with color, the exquisite printing in rich, subtle tonality, and the form of the images' presentation - handmade paper, passe-partout, frame - Christopher Thomas picks up on classical traditions. As a renowned photographer of a glamorous world of products, he has access to all advanced technological possibilities. However, as an artist, he places his faith in the power of the image. His photographs seem classical, from another time.
Before dawn, when the city is asleep, Thomas sets out in the twilight with his large-format camera - a field camera built for him by Linhof - which forces him to move slowly, as well as a tripod, a black cloth, and black-and-white Polaroid film. It is as if he were taking himself outside of time. As if, at this moment when night borders day, he could uncover the essence of the city, erasing the profane and quotidian in favor of the "eternal" or

DR. PETRA GILOY-HIRTZ ist Kuratorin und Autorin zahlreicher internationaler Ausstellungen und Publikationen zur zeitgenössischen Kunst. Sie war zehn Jahre lang Assistentin und Akademische Rätin für mittelalterliche Literatur an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf und Lehraufträge an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, seit 1993 ist sie freie Kuratorin, z.B. für das Diözesanmuseum des Erzbistums München und Freising (1998-2005). Ausstellungen mit Kiki Smith, Robert Longo, Olafur Eliasson, Geoffrey Hendricks, Mark Harrington, Lawrence Carroll, Kai Althoff u.v.a., Projektleiterin des Kulturreferenten der Stadt München (1998-2000).