6 spring street
new york city 10012
tel: 212.219.0166
info@jenbekman.com

gus powell

bio

Gus Powell was born in New York and currently lives in Brooklyn. Gus's photographs have been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston, MoMA NY, and other national and international galleries. His fine art and editorial work has appeared in The New Yorker, DoubleTake, Newsweek, and the book Bystander: A History of Street Photography. In 2003 Gus was included in Photo District News' "New Talent" issue and his first monograph, titled The Company of Strangers, was published by J&L Books.

statement

How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime
and St. Bridget's steeple leaning a little to the left

Frank O'Hara, Steps

In the mid 1950's Frank O'Hara wrote a book called Lunch Poems. Each day he would step out of his mid-town office, walk his way to the Olivetti typewriter showroom, and bang out a poem about ?the noisy splintered glare of a Manhattan noon.? For the past few years I have worked behind a desk not far from where O'Hara once sat. After I was given O'Hara's book my lunch breaks started to get longer. Sliding out of the revolving door I found myself transformed into a hungry sailor with one hour of liberty from his ship. Some days the sidewalk offered a dramatic or romantic one act play; a pedestrian might fall, a couple might kiss . . . but most of the time I was looking at people who walked towards and away from me. The quiet gestures of strangers in daylight became significant, and the photographs i made became my lunch pictures.