Leo Rubinfien, Robert Mann Gallery, NYC

Leo Rubinfien
Robert Mann Gallery, New York
November 8 - December 22, 2001

Leo Rubinfien is one of photography's great travelers, and his pictures are rich with the beauty of life on the road. These images are less about exotic, faraway places and more about the common landscape of an in-between place : the railway compartment, the aircraft cabin, the waiting room in the airport, tourists at a celebrated monument, or the luminous mixture of sun, water and air that a passenger glimpses through an airplane window.

Included in the exhibition are a selection of Leo Rubinfien's most recent series of photographs, some of which are published in Blind Spot 19 (November, 2001). In these images of billboards and signs we sense his fascination with their combination of ugliness and beauty and the dreams of youth, wealth and love that they convey. Leo Rubinfien's first book, entitled 'A Map of the East', was praised by Ian Buruma in the New York Review of Books as "superb." In 'The New York Times', Charles Hagen explains that the strength of Leo Rubinfien's photographs "lies in their ability to evoke the sense of discovery and surprise, alienation and introspection, that for many people characterizes the experience of travel. For many people this uneasy blend of emotions includes homesickness and melancholy, a yearning to be no longer the outsider. This feeling comes through strongly in Mr. Rubinfien's lonely, elegant pictures." Maria Morris Hambourg, Curator of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art calls 'A Map of the East' "as vivid and aching as brands on the heart." In 1994 the Robert Mann Gallery published Leo Rubinfien's second book, entitled '10 Takeoffs 5 Landings'.

Leo Rubinfien was born in Chicago in 1953. He has photographed in more than 40 countries across the world. Among other prestigious awards, he has received the Guggenheim Fellowship. His photographs have been exhibited widely at major museums in the United States, Europe and Japan, and are represented in many public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Corcoran Gallery and the Cleveland and Seattle Art Museums.

ROBERT MANN GALLERY
210 Eleventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001
www.robertmann.com