Alan Wolfson par Hollis Taggart

 Texte 

Alan Wolfson’s intricately detailed New York scenes evoke the gritty history of this often seamy city

Alan Wolfson’s intricately detailed New York scenes evoke the gritty history of this often seamy city as he recreates the grime of the subway platform, the harsh lighting of the deli counter, and the beckoning pleasures of Times Square in the 1970s. Nostalgia for the ‘bad old days’ looms large in Wolfson’s work. His miniature urban vignettes transport the viewer into the past, allowing them to fill these tiny spaces with imagined narratives. Wolfson encourages these narratives through the depiction of “the things that people leave behind – graffiti, trash, overflowing ashtrays, a tip left on a table or a door ajar – all evidence of someone having just been there.” (1) Small details give his works an inhabited feel, but the figure is conspicuously absent: “I never include people in the environments because that would only distract the viewer by drawing their attention to the fact that they are looking into a miniature – something not real. With any of the environments, my goal is to create a space in which the viewer is totally absorbed.”

Hollis Taggart (https://www.hollistaggart.com/artists/46-alan-wolfson/)