Vershbow photography opening this evening in New Haven

Exposure Gallery
1 Whitney Ave., New Haven, (203) 494-9905
The Library: Narrative Photographs by Gregory Vershbow
Jan. 17—Feb. 16, 2008
Opening Reception: Thurs., Jan. 17, 6—9 p.m.

Press release

" I, who imagined Paradise as a kind of library..."
—Jorge Luis Borges

The library is a place where the boundary between bodies and books is blurred, even erased. In the process of physical transformation, hidden histories emerge from between the covers and beneath the skin. There are many stories that weave through these scenes; book heads roam the alleys of bookcity, thieves try to inhale cheap wisdom from the book well, an old man learns that one cannot fly with paper wings, and deep in the forest beneath paperhill, a storyteller sings the last oral story while beating for attention on a drum of torn volumes. The storyteller is bound and shelved, people go to sleep between pages, the last reader's eyes grow tired, and the librarian, out in the cold, asks the book trees what kind of fruit they will bear when no one is left to read them.

These fragmented narratives are more a prologue to than a full explanation of the library. The images all are layered with printed text, but to know the stories, just read the pictures.

The Library is a series of photographic polyptychs and single images that depict a world that, along with its inhabitants, is physically transforming into books. These images were inspired by an interest in the physicality of bodies and books, however themes spring to form between the covers of books and beneath the skin of our bodies, inevitably playing a role in the telling of this story...

There is an opening reception this evening from 6—9 p.m. Gregory Vershbow has previously been profiled on Connectict Art Scene.