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Lynn Saville at the Brooklyn Museum

By Peggy Roalf   Thursday November 19, 2015


Lynn Saville continues her exploration of the city at night in her third book, Dark City: Urban America at Night. The urban landscape of dusk and dawn offers a world of transitional spaces largely overlooked in daylight. In the spaces between buildings and rivers, behind billboards and highways, alongside warehouses and empty storefronts, Saville captures a strange palette of artificial light whose colors define a mysterious and sometimes disquieting environment. 

In advance of her talk this weekend at the Brooklyn Museum, Lynn Saville did this exclusive Q&A for DART.

Q: When did you begin to have a serious interest in photography?

A: When I first enrolled in photography courses at Pratt Institute I was instantly attracted to photography. I saw the powerful way it communicated strong observations, feelings and concepts visually. It seemed miraculous that an emotion could be expressed on a piece of paper.

Q: Where are you from and what brought you to New York City? 

A: I was born and raised in North Carolina. My family spent summers in Vermont and lived three separate academic years in Italy (my parents had sabbaticals there.) Passing through New York City en route to Vermont and also to Europe, I was riveted by New York City and knew I had to move here at the earliest opportunity. So, after completing my undergraduate education at Duke University, I moved to Brooklyn to take some classes at Pratt.

Q: What were you working on when you began photographing urban settings at twilight? Was there a defining moment when you realized that this was your passion? 

A: As a photography student at Pratt, I was constantly taking photographs day and night. I photographed mostly as a street photographer at first, but quickly became interested in the theatrical appearance of city streets, parks and buildings at twilight. I took a wonderful class with a sculptor named Calvin Albert. One day he asked the students to draw a nude model in front of a black velvet backdrop, lighted with just one spotlight. We were asked to cover our drawing paper with charcoal and then erase the areas where light hit the figure. I suddenly “saw the light” and understood light/shadow and tonality. I could print properly from that moment on. I became passionate about twilight photography at that moment¾when I was able to print to reproduce the dramatic lighting I saw in the city.

Q: Why did you initially choose to work in black and white? When and why did you shift to color? 

A: As a beginning student, I was first taught black and white. We learned to shoot, develop and print photographs in the black-and-white darkroom. After my first major project, Acquainted with the Night was published as a book (Rizzoli, 1997) followed by several solo exhibitions¾at the Yancey Richardson Gallery (New York City), Jackson Fine Art (Atlanta) and Kopeikin Gallery (Los Angeles), I decided to experiment with a variety of different ways of working and was hooked by my experiments with color.  

Q: What is there about the urban fabric at dusk or dawn that holds an attraction for you? 

A: I appreciate the transformation in the way the city looks at dawn and dusk. I like the quickly shifting balance between natural daylight and artificial lights that occurs at dawn and dusk. Places take on a greater sense of geometry as light sources illuminate areas and cast shadows. I find it intriguing to see the interiors of places emerge and exteriors sometimes become more neutral. The entire balance of light, shadow and color shifts.  And the fact that there are fewer people on the street makes it easier to see and appreciate the way the city inhabits itself.

Q: In your previous book, Night Shift, you photographed out-of-the-way places in New York City and other urban environments. What was the appeal of those overlooked spaces and empty storefronts?  

A: As I began to work in color photography, I started to explore more peripheral areas. The city changes constantly. Areas that had been industrial were becoming more residential. It was fascinating to walk around parts of Brooklyn and Long Island City, for example, and see big construction sites where there had been smaller houses and businesses. High-rise buildings were being built in these neighborhoods.  

Q: Have you ever found a desolate site too creepy to remain in? Do you have a get-away car and driver? Have you ever been hassled by police at night?  

A: I tend to work alone in the greater New York area, but when I travel to other cities, as I did for my Dark City: Urban America at Night book, I hired local photographers to drive me around. They would help me scouting for good locations and then we’d return to specific areas. They were crucial to my safety, because my radar wasn’t tuned into their city’s neighborhoods. I have rarely been hassled by police. Once or twice, after 911, around major hotels and iconic places like the Brooklyn Bridge, the police would say it was against the law to take photographs. I try to avoid police and security people and keep a “low profile.” I generally don’t trespass because my subjects are visible from public areas.

 

Q: There are so many shades of artificial light that emanate from buildings at night--some leaning to aquarium-like greens, others to screaming chartreuse. Do you do anything, in camera or post production, to intensify the colors?  

A: I try to recreate in my prints the colors I perceived when I was taking photographs.

Q: When do you re-shoot a twilight scene at dawn, and what is the difference in the quality of light for the effect you are trying to achieve?  

A: There is actually quite a lot of difference. The light is more dramatic in the west after sunset and in the east before sunrise. If a building or tree is backlit at dawn there would be a greater separation of tones from sky to tree or building at that time, and it might look a bit calmer and less intense at twilight. 

Q: What are you working on now? 

A: I’m focusing on one of two figures in the night city landscape, and portraits in that same light. 

On Saturday, November 21st, the Brooklyn Museum presents a talk and book signing with Lynn Saville at 2 pm. 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NYInfo

Dark City: Urban America at Night (Damiani 2015), with an introduction by Geoff Dyer, is available in bookstores. Info

Photos: Top: Dyckman Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York, from Dark City (Damiani, 2015). Center: Pepsi-Cola Sign, from Night/Shift (Monacelli, 2009). Below:  Neon Sign, West 50th Street, New York City, from Dark City: Urban America at Night (Damiani). All photos copyright and courtesy of the artist.

Fine-art photographer Lynn Saville was educated at Duke University and Pratt Institute. She specializes in photographing cities at twilight and dawn, or, as she describes them, “the boundary times between night and day.” Her photographs have been widely exhibited in the U.S. and abroad. Dark City: Urban America at Night (Damiani, 2015), with an introduction by the well-known British critic Geoff Dyer, is her third book. Her two previous monographs are Acquainted With the Night (Rizzoli, 1997) and Night/Shift (Random House/Monacelli, 2009), with an introduction by Arthur C. Danto. Saville has won a number of awards, including fellowships from The New York Foundation for the Arts and The New York State Council for the Arts; a Premio in the Scanno, Italy, Festival of Photography; and First Place in the Architecture category, Women in Photography International.  Her work is represented by the Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York and is in the permanent art collections of major museums, corporations, and individuals. She lives in New York City with her husband, the poet Philip Fried. 

 

 


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