Bing Wright

NEW YORK—The Paula Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs by Bing Wright, running from March 28 through April 26 at 465 West 23rd Street. This is the Seattle-born photographer’s second one-person exhibition with the gallery.

The exhibition will include a selection of black-and-white photographs of roses from 1996 and 2006. Originally inspired by Edward Steichen’s Heavy Roses, Voulangis, France 1914, a famous print showing an arrangement of sensual rose blooms in the process of wilting, Wright began taking pictures of roses in 1996, but eventually abandoned the project as he felt defeated by the loaded, iconic quality of the subject.

In 2006, Wright decided to return to the project, approaching the images as reductive tableaus in a soft gray scale tonality. Wright’s camera alternately captures an overturned stem or a lone leaf floating in a vase, scattered petals lying about or thorny stems crossed like battle-axes in a vase. Shot in a very shallow depth-of-field, the dissected flower appears to hover in and out of focus, with some details attaining the sharpness of an ink drawing (a frequent quality of Wright’s work) while others fade into the background.

Bing Wright was born in Seattle in 1958 and received a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Columbia College, New York. His photographs have been shown in exhibitions at the Tang Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs (2007), the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1991) and the Queens Museum of Art, New York (1986), among others. His work is currently in several museums and collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the AXA Collection. He lives and works in New York City.

For more information, please contact the gallery: (212) 255-1105 or
info@paulacoopergallery.com