Michael Hoppen Gallery is pleased to return to AIPAD, New York, this year with an exceptional group of vintage prints. Each one has a story to tell. We look forward to welcoming you to our stand (225) at the fair which opens to the public on Friday 31st March 2023, where you will enjoy seeing our selection of works, many of which have never been exhibited before.
Exhibited artists include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Krass Clement, Sergio Larrain, Erwin Blumenfeld, Tim Walker amongst others.
Center415
415 5th Avenue, New York, NY
Preview day: Thursday 30th March, 2023
Public days: Friday 31st March - Sunday 2nd April, 2023
SPOTLIGHT: Krass Clement Drum, 1991
“I discovered an extraordinary book many years ago by the contemporary Danish photographer Krass Clement. The book is called Drum and takes its name from the eponymous Irish village where all the photographs were shot in a small bar over the course of one evening in 1991.
Clement had been invited to do a project in Ireland, and arrived in Dublin by boat from Denmark, with no clear direction but a yearning to find good photographic opportunities to take his mind off the recent death of his mother. He found himself in the village of Drum which sits near the border with Northern Ireland. He entered a bar on the edge of the town: the modest room was lit with one solitary lightbulb; it had a scrubbed wooden bar and floor; a few benches and bare walls.
As Clement settled quietly into a corner with a beer, men started to filter through the door. He had a camera and just 2 1/2 rolls of film in his pocket. He started to photograph the characters that now populated the bar; and was drawn to the incredible face of one elderly man in particular. The images are darkly atmospheric, almost melancholic, as Clement’s assiduous eye captures the man’s pensive expressions and the deep lines of his face.
In the sparse text that accompanies the photographs in the book, the reader is informed that the bar was the meeting place for local Protestants in what is - still today – an otherwise predominantly Catholic region.
Each frame moves from one small moment to another – but always centring on this one solitary figure, lost in his own thoughts. The photographer is almost invisible as no one seems to be aware of his presence, as he is documenting the scene. At the end of the evening, Clement had shot 90 frames and it is these that make up this wonderful series of magnificently raw photographs.
The extraordinary group of photographs made in this pub, became a Holy Grail for me, and I eventually was able to meet with the photographer to discuss representing this work for him, and trying to find collectors and museums who up until now, had been unaware of his exceptional talent.
Clement always made all his own prints, each one is magnificent. But he has produced very few, and unusually, no later prints nor editions exist. We are extremely lucky to be able to represent this work at our gallery. The pictures have been beautifully printed, and the only comparison that I can find is in the spiritual, compelling work of Christopher Killip, known for the critical sharpness and exceptional print quality of his social documentary photography.
Krass Clements’s work equals Killip’s in many ways and shows an acute humanity not often seen in photographs of this period. Each frame, and therefore each page as one pulses through the book, cement Drum’s reputation as one of the most outstanding series I have seen. Clement’s photographs are mesmerising, and I can barely take my eyes from the pictures every time I look at them. This will be the first time they have ever been seen in the USA, and we are delighted and honoured to be able to bring them to a wider audience."
- Michael Hoppen
