DNJ Gallery Announces Exhibition of Bill Owens and Ginny Mangrum

Los Angeles, CA, November 20, 2007 --(PR.com)-- Upcoming Exhibition: Bill Owens: Suburbia and Leisure
Gallery II: Ginny Mangrum, “Night Moves”
Dec. 13, 2007 – Feb. 9, 2008
Reception: Sat., Dec. 15, 2007 5-7 pm

DNJ Gallery
154½ N. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
323.931.1311

DNJ Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition featuring a selection of Bill Owens’ iconic photographs from his books, Suburbia and Leisure. Owens documents a wide variety of suburban life and leisure activities, and demonstrates his unique talent for creating revealing images that are not only direct and compassionate, but also humorous.

While working for an independent newspaper in the late sixties, Bill Owens began photographing his friends and neighbors in the towns surrounding suburban Livermore, California. Owens’ images reveal a sense of newly found freedom and wealth — new houses, green lawns, barbecues, and play spaces. As photographer Gregory Crewdson wrote about his work: “Owens is among the generation of photographers…who used the tradition of documentary photography to explore the complexities and contradictions of the American landscape. [Owens] used an objective style of photography in an effort to locate a perfect tension between banality and beauty, domesticity and nature, criticism and admiration.”

Today, Owens’ assessment of suburban life is even more relevant. Downtown areas are being revitalized; urban living has regained its attraction. The suburban ideal is overcome by increasing derision and Owens foresaw this in his groundbreaking work.

Owens' first book, Suburbia, published in 1973, was an instant success and later gained recognition as one the most influential photography books of the twentieth century. Over the course of a decade, Owens completed four photographic series capturing the multifaceted lives of the residents in the growing American suburbs. Also available in book form, the next two series focus on the different aspects of the suburban experience; social organizations (Our Kind of People, 1976), and the workplace (Working, 1978.) The final book in the series, Leisure, published most recently in 2004, captures the wide range of activities of suburbanites in their free time.

The influence of Owens' photography is evident in the work of writers and contemporary artists, as well as filmmakers such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson. Owens has exhibited throughout the world, and his works are in the collections of MoMA, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art; The J.P. Getty Museum; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Center for Creative Photography; Smithsonian Museum of American Art; National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.; Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, and others.

Gallery II features the series “Night Moves” by Ginny Mangrum. In this series of seven black and white images, Mangrum stresses the intensity of darkness as she moves through the night, photographing both private and public spaces. All the places she photographs are actively used during the day, but at night, become as still as the image itself. Only in one image do we actually see a person, reminding ourselves that we, like the artist, are also the voyeur. Mangrum is a recent Masters of Fine Arts graduate of Mills College in Oakland, California. She has exhibited throughout the San Francisco Bay area. This is her first show in Los Angeles.

For more information contact, Jennifer Chrzanowski 323-931-1311

DNJ Gallery
154½ N. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
323-931-1311
Tuesday through Saturday 10:00am to 6:00pm
Closed Nov. 22nd & 23rd
Closed Dec. 25th--Jan. 1st

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