Deborah Bell Photographs present Norwegian photographer Dag Alveng’s second one-person exhibition in New York.
The exhibition will feature black-and-white gelatin silver prints depicting landscapes and everyday situations in pastoral summer settings in Norway and Sweden from Alveng’s ongoing series, Summer Light, dating from the late 1970s to the present.
Though Alveng’s subject is delivered in a straightforward and classical manner, his imagery ranges from pleasant views – a vacationing family crab-fishing at the beach, a lone dinghy in open water, or the artist himself, nude, falling into a fjord – to more complex and mysterious compositions, often in double exposure, of desolate, rocky shores and murky ocean vistas.
Alveng’s gelatin silver prints are gorgeous and finely nuanced, in a palette ranging from moody, flat greys to brilliant, overexposed whites that accentuate the atmosphere and time of day during which he photographed.
Among Alveng’s kindred spirits are the American photographers Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz, with whom he shares not only an interest in subject matter but also an eye for delicacy of light and tonal value that convey spare compositions that are at once deceptively simple, formally elegant and psychologically compelling.
Alveng’s photographs are in the collections of major museums in the United States, Scandinavia and Europe, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Yale University Art Gallery; Sprengel Museum, Hanover; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo; Henie-Onstad Art Center, Hovikodden; The National Museum of Photography – Preus Fotomuseum, Horten; The Art Collection of the City of Oslo; Bank of America Collection (formerly LaSalle Bank Photography Collection), Chicago; and numerous private collections worldwide.
When: September 13 to October 25. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from Noon – 6pm.
Where: The gallery is located between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in Chelsea, under the High Line.
Info: www.alveng.com