Foley gallery is pleased to announce When We Were Young, a group photography exhibition exploring the memory of childhood and adolescents through the eyes of 30 contemporary photographers working from the 1970’s to the present.
It may be easier to look back at our own experience of youth by taking a look at photographs that detail a time full of transitions, triumphs and false starts. By sharing and comparing the work of several photographers’ experiences, perhaps we can find links and threads that can lead us back into a collective memory of these times.
The photograph by Thomas Allen, Uplift, 2004, captures the exhilaration and possibility of childhood friends, while alluding to or “foreshadowing” a future with carnal results. David Levinthal animates small clown figures taking their final curtain call for an adoring, but oddly absent audience.
Joseph Szabo shares his perspective as a high school teacher by photographing his students “at play” on the beaches of Long Island in the 1970’s.
David Hilliard and Christine Back each show a different side of the telling secrets held in a whisper between girls.
Jerry Dantzic’s “East River Raft,” shows five “Huck Finns” sailing the East River on a makeshift raft. Harvey Stein ventures into the hot and vibrant reds and yellows of Coney Island while Fred Becker unearths forgotten treasures from ocean meets beach to preserve them forever in black and white.
Sally Mann shows the repercussions of a bug bite and Andrea Modica shows a child spinning out of control.
Other wonderful examples include work by Diane Arbus, Mark Crosby, Jona Frank, Lisa Kereszi, Linda Kramer, Christine Lebeck, Jordan Matter, Jane S. Noel, Stuart O’Sullivan, Maggie Preston, Jeremy Keats Saladyga, August Sander, Paul Shafer, Bob Shamis, Rosalind Solomon, Mark Steinmetz, Joni Sternbach, Kira Sugarman, Monika Sziladi and Masao Yamamoto.