Thursday evening opening at Parachute Gallery in Erector Square

Parachute Gallery
70 Audubon St., 2nd floor, New Haven, (203) 772-2788
White Collar. Blue Collar. Pink Slip.
Through Sept. 18, 2009
Opening reception: Tues., June 30, 5—7 p.m.

Press release

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven presents White Collar. Blue Collar. Pink Slip., an exhibition that explores the uncertainties, anxieties, and rewards of the workplaces that shape our identities. The exhibition will be on display at The Parachute Factory, Erector Square, 319 Peck St., Bldg. 1, New Haven, from Wed., June 24 through Tues., Sept. 18. An artists' reception is scheduled for Tues., June 30, from 5—7 p.m. The public is invited to attend.

Recently, we've been deluged with a seemingly endless amount of information about the adverse effects of the down economy. Banks and corporations are in trouble, and people are losing their jobs. It is, unquestionably, an anxious time for many.

White Collar. Blue Collar. Pink Slip. examines the impacts of the current economic crisis through works that confront us with symbols of debt and unemployment, and takes us into abandoned, often deteriorating factories whose empty silences scream of crippled industries and decimated workforces.

The exhibition also puts us face to face with the socioeconomic ladder, introducing us, through paintings and photographs, to the white-collar professionals near the top, and the blue-collar workers and manual laborers closer to the bottom. We are introduced to the dignity of those who work in the retail and service industries in New Haven and their counterparts across the United States and in Europe. And we experience the daily struggle for survival of those living "off the grid" in the southeastern United States.

White Collar. Blue Collar. Pink Slip. forces us to look at the process of starting over through the work of the exhibition's artist-in-residence, Moussa Gueye, a political asylee from Mauritania who has begun his artistic career anew here, in his adopted country.

Other featured artists include Roland Becerra, Frank Bruckmann (Web), Lucas Foglia (Web), Douglas McGoldrick (Web), David Ottenstein (Web), Hank Paper (Web), Jean Perkins, Cindy Tower (Web), and Rita Valley (Web).

White Collar. Blue Collar. Pink Slip. is the first of a two-part exhibition called Work/Place, which examines the environments on which our survival depends. The second part of the exhibition, Out of House and Home, opens in October.

The Parachute Factory is a collaboration of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, and Community Services Network of Greater New Haven. White Collar. Blue Collar. Pink Slip. is presented by The Parachute Factory, in collaboration with Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS).