Foley Gallery is delighted to present Third Rail, a site-specific installation by Clay Patrick McBride.
McBride’s installation is part of the storefront window curatorial series, in which artists are invited to create site-specific works for Foley Gallery’s window displays. For this installation, McBride sculpts and pastes his black and white 35mm photographs of people riding the NYC subway to replicate a sense of anxiety and anonymity.
The long glass corridor windows will accentuate the subway rider’s experience, creating a dark and chaotic claustrophobia on other side of the gallery’s entranceway.
According to McBride, “My camera reports less about how the subway looks than it does about how this fearful space feels. The photographic frame becomes a kind of prison for our uneasy consciousness. Travelers are deformed as they are captured in my 35mm cells and crushed by the weight of the world. Witnessing the mass of people robbed of their identities; my camera turns them all into phantoms.”
McBride began his visual training in the South of France, where he studied painting and art history. He eventually turned his focus to photography, moving to New York City in the early 1990s to attend the School of Visual Arts. While earning his BFA, McBride developed a bold style of portraiture intended to both celebrate and empower the subject with humor and honesty. In 2013, McBride earned his Masters in Digital Photography from the School of Visual Arts. McBride currently resides in Rochester NY and is a professor at the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Third Rail will remain on view through February 22nd. Foley Gallery is open Wednesday - Sunday, 12 - 6pm. To request images; please contact the gallery at 212.244.9081 or info@foleygallery.com.