© Gregory Crewdson
The Gallerie d’Italia – Torino, the museum of Intesa Sanpaolo, will present its first major fall exhibition Gregory Crewdson: Eveningside. From October 12, 2022, to January 22, 2023, the museum will devote most of its recently opened 10,000 square meters of gallery spaces to the internationally acclaimed American photographer’s work, with the world premiere of a brand new eponymously titled series of photographs, Eveningside (2021-2022) as the exhibition’s centerpiece. Crewdson’s Eveningside pictures, produced in part as a commission by Intesa Sanpaolo, were envisioned by the artist as the final movement of a trilogy spanning 10 years of work.
The exhibition is a survey of a trilogy, curated by Jean-Charles Vergne, beginning with Cathedral of the Pines (2012-2014) and An Eclipse of Moths (2018-2019) as well as Crewdson’s earlier minimalist Fireflies (1996) pictures. Additionally, Making Eveningside, a behind-the-scenes video projection set to original music by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and Stuart Bogie, the American multi-instrumentalist-composer, will be on view in a state-of-the-art multimedia room within the museum, adjacent to the exhibition.
In contrast to the slightly haunted, lonely and remote forests of Cathedral of the Pines and the vast, bleak, post-industrial landscapes in An Eclipse of Moths, in Eveningside, Gregory Crewdson explores moments of contemplation within the confines of quotidien life, in places of employment and in moments just outside of those work structures. The figures populating the pictures are sparse and are often seen through storefront windows, in mirror reflections,or positioned underneath the mundane proscenium found in the midst of their everyday routines: railroad bridges, doorways, porches, the overhanging roofline of a bank teller drive-through, a dairy bar, a corner market or a hardware store. Bringing his vantage point closer to the figures, using a heightened range of light and darkness, special effects such as fog, rain, smoke and haze–and for the first time using his now ubiquitous full production and lighting team in a monochromatic palette–the result is a rich gothic atmosphere, evocative of film noir and classic cinema, but with the capabilities and clarity of the most current technology available in digital photography. Eveningside comprises 20 digital pigment prints, 87.6 x 116.8 cm. (34.5 x 46 in.).
All three series in the trilogy represent essential stages in Gregory Crewdson’s artistic journey and creative evolution over the past decade, themes ranging from the deeply intimate and personal to existential and vast expansive views of the world as well as reflection on his deep respect and admiration for the history of photography, painting, cinema and other mediums–all reinvented to tell his own stories.
The Fireflies pictures offer both connective tissue and counterpoint in their simplicity, made in isolation by the artist in 1996, with two cameras on analog black and white film.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a free public program of #INSIDE meetings, talks with notable guests, and special events, on Wednesdays at 6:30.
The Gallerie d’Italia – Torino, together with those in Milan, Naples and Vicenza, are part of Intesa Sanpaolo‘s public art and culture museum project.
American Photographer Gregory Crewdson
American photographer Gregory Crewdson was born in 1962 in Brooklyn, New York, and lives and works in New York City and Massachusetts. He is a graduate of SUNY Purchase, New York, and the Yale School of Art, New Haven, where he is now a professor and director of graduate studies in photography. Collections include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Exhibitions include Gregory Crewdson: 1985–2005, Kunstverein Hannover, Germany (2005, traveled to Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Germany; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; and Landesgalerie Linz, Austria); In a Lonely Place, C/O Berlin (2011, traveled extensively); Beneath the Roses, Museu da Imagem e do Som, São Paulo (2014); Fireflies, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY (2014); The Becket Pictures, FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France (2017); and Cathedral of the Pines, Photographers’ Gallery, London (2017, traveled to Centre of Contemporary Art, Toruń, Poland, 2017–2018).