Adam Shopkorn and Carolyn Tate Angel hosted a private reception celebrating the opening of Josh & Benny Safdie‘s two-part exhibition, Pieces of Advice x From a Pedestrian Point of View, on view through October 11, 2015.
Josh and Ben Safdie are filmmakers at heart. Its a commitment to story, but here, with “Pieces of Advice x From a Pedestrian Point of View”, the focus feels more on development, with scribbles of lines of near advice, words on truth, cleverly placed with cutouts of tragedies, exaggeration of humanity, and otherwise. The feeling verges on meme-like, where you giggle at the plausible meanings, but straighten up when you place the cutouts into their contexts. Benny’s work is more clear, its Lana Del Rey does Miami, its luxurious, its in the very modern square image, its cars, its lifestyle, its very american. It’s not gritty, but its not informative, either. The photographs have elements of maintained vintage, something of a Cuban modernism. The works are all clever, whether in their curious application of words, or in their truthful, present reality. The thing most captivating about From a Pedestrian Point of View is the universality of it. It feels familiar, it feels done, because the subjects are everyday, if only everyone took a closer look would they notice them. Josh and Ben are historically filmmakers, their work has earned them multiple festival jury awards, FIPRESCI’s, Independent Spirit and Gotham Awards. Their films have premiered at international film festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Venice, Locarno, Viennale, Tokyo and SXSW. The show is being held at Adam Shopkorn’s Fort Gansevoort. Set in a Greek Revival row house built in 1849, Fort Gansevoort is located on Gansevoort Plaza, between the intersection of Gansevoort and Little West 12th Street. The three-story building contains a gallery, take-out BBQ window, and more. The opening night saw a variety of people including the Safdie brothers, Sabrina Hahn, Jeannette Hayes, Casey Neistat, among others.
Pieces of Advice x From a Pedestrian Point of View is on view through October 11, 2015 at 5 Ninth Avenue, NY, NY 10014.