Who We Really Are And What We Have Finally Become

Bruce Davidson

Couple embracing in the dark (from Brooklyn Gang), 1959

From December 11, 2014 through January 24, 2015, the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York will be exhibiting another diverse Staff Picks show.  Posted here are my thoughts and selections for the exhibition. 

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The author and philosopher Robert M. Pirsig has written "He thinks of them at night alone with their advertised glamorous shoes and stockings and underclothes off, staring through the sooty windows at the grotesque shells revealed beyond them, when the poses weaken and the truth creeps in, the only truth that exists here, crying to heaven, God, there is nothing here but dead neon and cement and brick."  

The photographs I have selected by Bruce Davidson, Roy DeCarava, William Gedney, Dave Heath, and Saul Leiter all cut through the supposed darkness of the night.  It may be that only at this late hour will we learn firsthand who we really are and what we have finally become. 

- Pak So

Roy DeCarava

Man in Window, New York, 1978

William Gedney

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1975

Dave Heath

New York City, 1961

Saul Leiter

Untitled, 1950's