BROOKLYN, NY – 440 Gallery is pleased to present Organized Chaos, the gallery’s fifth solo exhibition of David Stock’s urban landscape photography. Stock uses the dense visual layers and varied cultural iconography of New York City as raw material for colorful prints made with pigmented inks on fine art paper. The work’s deep engagement with New York’s eclectic built environment gives rise to personal emotional responses, social observations, and flashes of humor.
The tension between objective portrayal and subjective intent powers Stock’s work. His pieces not only capture the raw subject in front of the lens, but they also elicit equally raw responses from the viewer. In Stock’s own words, “When I find the right balance of representation and abstraction, the complexity of the city begins to evoke the complexity of my beliefs and emotions within the confines of the picture space. Tangles of coaxial cable become my own tangles; when the wires dance, so do I.”
Stock’s considered, meticulous printmaking process plays a key role in bringing the photographs to life. While his prints exhibit classic photographic qualities, they display an attention to graphic design and a personalized palette that is more often associated with painting.
After studying with photographers Aaron Siskind and Arthur Siegel at Harvard, Stock exhibited his work at the Panopticon Gallery and the Fogg Museum in the 1970s. In addition, Stock was a member of the prestigious Polaroid Photographers Program and Collection. After moving to Los Angeles in 1980, Stock exhibited at the California Museum of Photography, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Palos Verdes Art Center, the Kerckhoff Gallery at UCLA, and the Angels Gate Cultural Center, among many other spaces. He has also shown his photography at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, and at museums and galleries in Denmark, Brazil, and Mexico. Stock’s images have been widely published as magazine portfolios and covers in both print and online media.
A long time labor and political activist as well as an artist, Stock lives in Jackson Heights, Queens.
On view: May 25 – June 25, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 27, 4-6 pm
Artist Talk: Sunday, June 11, 4:40 pm
More information: 440gallery.com
Photographic pigment print, 17″x25″
