Gilles Drouault multiples, Paris

François Fernandez

In the early 80s, Roland Flexner moved to New York. Like many artists, he found his studio in the Bowery district. At the time, the whole neighborhood was a haven for drug addicts and homeless people, often the same people.

That’s why artists also found refuge there: the spaces were large and the rents low.
Roland Flexner settled on the corner of the Bowery and Spring Street.

Between drawings and paintings, he came up with an idea, a desire, which over time was transformed into a work of art: Roland Flexner photographed Spring Street every day from his studio window. Less frequently, he photographs the more animated Bowery.

These photos reflect several eras, from the 80s, when homeless and drug dealers shared the street, to the 2020s, when the gentrified neighborhood welcomed fashionable brands. Each photo bears witness to a particular moment and era, while the whole bears witness to the history of New York over the past forty years.

In the mid-80s, Noel Dolla went to New York for a few days. He visited his friend Roland Flexner, slept at his place and spent the day touring the city, from the Bowery to the Bronx, via Central Park and the Willamsburg Bridge.

He had an idea in mind: to take photographs of the city from the author’s “point of view” as far as possible. Of course, the author’s total absence is impossible: he chooses the city, the neighborhood, the Park, the bridge, but he works out a shooting system, with the help of a cable, a rubber band and the Polaroid timer, that leaves the definition of frame, sharpness, composition and subject to chance (for the most scientific minds: gravity, wind, atmospheric pressure…).

The camera seizes unexpected angles, taking photos that are almost perfectly sharp or totally out of focus. Sometimes it’s movement itself that’s captured, at other times abstractions shot through with light.
Forty years later, the two artists decided to exhibit together for the first time… They each selected 30 photos from their New York series.

This selection belongs to the history of photography, bears witness to the history of New York, and is also a story of friendship.

These are the stories we’ll be showing in Marseille at Art-o-rama.

 

Gilles Drouault

https://www.gillesdrouault.com/