Urban Luminosity
September 13 – October 20 2012

NEW YORK. Sep 11, 2012 – Barry Friedman Ltd is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new large-scale color photographs from American photographer Michael Eastman’s Urban Luminosity series.

Taken across Asia and North American over the past 4 years, Eastman explains, these images “engage architectural abstraction with luminance to capture the way light is reflected o or di used through urban surfaces.”

The exhibition, Eastman’s third at Barry Friedman Ltd, will open with a reception for the artist on Thursday, September 13th, from 6:00-8:oop.m.

Urban Luminosity exemplifies architectonic alchemy. Reflections on metallic walls, the flattened perspective of a hotel’s rotunda, undulating waves of a Frank Gehry building and dramatic façade lighting, encourage us to examine our relationship with our man-made environs.

The union between common elements of ‘the city’ with sensuous surfaces, lights, and colors, combine to form a “skin” in which we find ourselves encapsulated. This commonality is illustrated in modern and contemporary architecture found in cities as far flung as: Shanghai, Osaka, Tokyo, Las Vegas, Seattle, St. Louis, and New York.

Michael Eastman was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1947. The range of his oeuvre is diverse, including such themes as horses, sublime landscapes and urban and European architecture.

His publications include Vanishing America (2008, Rizzoli) and Horses (2003, Knopf), and his photographs are featured in Rainer Maria Rilke’s book Auguste Rodin, published by Archipelago Press. Eastman has been a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts grant, and has been published in Time, Life, and the New York Times.