Edited by Nick Vogelson, Anton Aparin. Introduction by Boyd Holbrook. Text by Manuel Segade. Conversation with Ryan McGinley.
It was for his sharply focused portraits of young men--friends and lovers--that David Armstrong (born 1954) first gained critical attention, alongside his “Boston School” friends Nan Goldin, Jack Pierson, Mark Morrisroe and others. In the 1990s he changed tack somewhat, producing soft-focus cityscapes in which street lights, street corners and urban signage were elaborated into a soft blur. With 615 Jefferson Avenue, Armstrong returns to the subject of his youth. The photographer's first monograph in ten years, it gathers portraits of young boys taken in his turn-of-the-century row house in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, or at his farm in upstate New York, all of which were made in the course of taking fashion photographs. Low-key in their eroticism, these images always aim for a tangible, evident contact with their subjects: “It always has been this act of seduction, where you are trying to get the subjects to reveal themselves before the camera,” Armstrong put it in a recent New York Timesinterview. The rooms in which Armstrong shoots are painted in rich, dense, mint greens and browns, matching the period of the house itself, so that an atmosphere of enveloping interior catches the outlines of these boys, posed upon the many couches that fill Armstrong's home. Filled with the excitement of rediscovering familiar terrain anew, this volume collects 120 of Armstrong's color and black-and-white portraits.
"I think when you work on something, you thing, 'OK, what just happened, and what's going to happen?' But with my work I think, 'Nothing. This is it. This is what happened. There's nothing before and there's not something after. This is a portrait, it's not about a narrative.'"
David Armstrong, excerpted from his interview with Ryan McGinley in 615 Jefferson Avenue. Featured image, Jarrod, 2011, is also reproduced from 615 Jefferson Avenue.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The New York Times
William Van Meter
"The images are romantic but far from erotic. They have a timeless quality, the models awash in sunlight and dressed in variety of corsets, military garb and, of course, tulle - anything but modern clothes and nary a logo in sight."
Out Magazine
Jack Pierson
David Armstrong relishes the one-on-one intimacy of shooting without the air-brushed, over-styled deception of modern picture taking- which is abundantly apparent in his new monograph, 615 Jefferson Avenue (Damiani, $45), a dreamy collection of angelic, semmingly vulnerable young men.
"Armstrong's photographs are portraits, and the intense level of attention discloses his methodology: slow, cautious. A model's form evokes by way of deep, seemingly uncontrolled introspection. The languid rhythm is stressed by the warmth of a light that is absorbed into the body and then released, as if by a bright steam. Eroticism is transferred interpersonally via the atmosphere, by way of sheer compositional control. Beauty is presented as an epiphany, an instantaneous and meaningful signpost in a fragile, unstable combination of elements…the act of looking at his images is always closer to a reading than it is a viewing: a void filmed with phantoms. His models are interchangeable and at the same time distinctly unique. They contribute to a tradition where the sense of the image is more dense, even if that tradition is never directly references. Allusion is offered, in the place of analogy, and it is the means by which tradition might or might not travel. This vague past is part of a personal universe, a private encyclopedia where every picture is addendum. Beauty is stored and never taken for granted."
Photographer David Armstrong died this weekend—on October 25, 2014, of liver cancer—at the age of 60. One of the key artists of the "Boston School," which also included Nan Goldin, Jack Pierson and Mark Morrisroe, Armstrong is best known for his intimate, sexually charged portraiture and a life hard lived. Featured photograph, "Dylan," (2008) is reproduced from 615 Jefferson Avenue, Damiani's 10-year retrospective of Armstrong's photographs of beautiful boys who came to stay with him in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn or his farm upstate while working on fashion photographs. In an interview published in the book, photographer Ryan McGinley asks Armstrong about his return to photography, and New York, in 1990. Armstrong responds, "Nan taught me: 'You have to look at a picture and think, Could anyone else have taken this? Aside from you? If someone could have, it’s no good for you. Just get rid of it. Is it yours? Is it possible anyone could have taken it but you?" continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9 x 11 in. / 176 pgs / 120 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $55 ISBN: 9788862081788 PUBLISHER: Damiani AVAILABLE: 7/31/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Damiani. Edited by Nick Vogelson, Anton Aparin. Introduction by Boyd Holbrook. Text by Manuel Segade. Conversation with Ryan McGinley.
It was for his sharply focused portraits of young men--friends and lovers--that David Armstrong (born 1954) first gained critical attention, alongside his “Boston School” friends Nan Goldin, Jack Pierson, Mark Morrisroe and others. In the 1990s he changed tack somewhat, producing soft-focus cityscapes in which street lights, street corners and urban signage were elaborated into a soft blur. With 615 Jefferson Avenue, Armstrong returns to the subject of his youth. The photographer's first monograph in ten years, it gathers portraits of young boys taken in his turn-of-the-century row house in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, or at his farm in upstate New York, all of which were made in the course of taking fashion photographs. Low-key in their eroticism, these images always aim for a tangible, evident contact with their subjects: “It always has been this act of seduction, where you are trying to get the subjects to reveal themselves before the camera,” Armstrong put it in a recent New York Timesinterview. The rooms in which Armstrong shoots are painted in rich, dense, mint greens and browns, matching the period of the house itself, so that an atmosphere of enveloping interior catches the outlines of these boys, posed upon the many couches that fill Armstrong's home. Filled with the excitement of rediscovering familiar terrain anew, this volume collects 120 of Armstrong's color and black-and-white portraits.
