FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JOEL GREY, “LOOKING HARD"
September 23 – October 12, 2007
2525 Michigan Avenue Santa Monica, Begamot Station A-5, CA 90404
310. 828-0211 / 323 839-6166 cell
E-mail, Laurie@frankpicturesgallery.com
Web site, http://www.frankpicturesgallery.com
Joel Grey, “Girl in Blue Dress”, 2003, Iris print on Crane Museo paper, 26 x 39½ on 33" x 45" sheet, Edition / 4 of 7.
Academy and Tony award winning actor, Joel Grey (Cabaret), exhibits his formidable talents as a photographer with an exhibition, Looking Hard, at Frank Pictures Gallery in Santa Monica's Bergamot Station, his fourth solo exhibition and his first in Los Angeles . Grey's photographs, which have recently become part of the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York , is also the subject of two art books: "Pictures I had To Take" and "Looking Hard At Unexamined Things, a 180-page Steidl/Göttingen monograph designed by Sam Shahid.
The Frank Pictures exhibition presents 12 of the key images, selected by Grey to be printed in gorgeous pigment ink processes; most are 46 x 34", in editions limited to 7. His subjects are industrial sites, abandoned buildings, graffiti, wall art, abstractions in which he is seduced by color, texture, and urban tableaux.
"Grey says of his work, "I came upon these images in a somewhat random way, usually accompanied by a question mark — 'What is and why does this insist on my attention?' Sometimes simply detail, light, texture and color were compelling. Often there were bits and pieces of things, transformed and rearranged by time. I have always been drawn to stuff once cherished, lived in, then left. Stuff I refer to as the beauty of bruised and broken things."
Grey's work appears in many major photography collections that span the worlds of art, theater and film, including those of Agnes Gund, the President of the Museum of Modern Art, Mary Tyler Moore, Hal Price, Larry Hagman and Bernadette Peters. Grey has recently starred in the Broadway production of Wicked as well as frequent guest appearances on TV: "Brothers and Sisters," "Alias" and "House."
http://www.frankpicturesgallery.com/joelgrey
