April 22, 2023 - June 10, 2023
Gallery reception is Saturday, April 22 from 2:00 to 5:00 pm.
“These still life works were started in 2008 and continue, on and off, to this day. I have been in a deep immersion with books from early on when my dad would regularly take me to the Gardena Public Library – he hated buying books and loved to read. From being an avid reader I went to work at The Strand Bookstore in New York City in 1980. I was also the Acquisitions Librarian at the Art Center College Library in Pasadena from 1989 to 2017.
I never considered reading something one does strictly for “self-improvement” (God forbid) or even for pleasure, although these may play a role. My primary reason for reading was to enter into a relationship with an author that could, ultimately, transform my brain – in effect one is a different person after reading a book with which one has had a profound emotional connection. That’s what you look for in books – transformation, ecstasy, understanding, communion. These are some of those books in my life.
While working in the library I would get a cold every New Year like clockwork – always during our three week year end vacation. In 2008 I decided to turn my self-isolation to working from home by making still life’s – a genre I had never liked (and still don’t like) in paintings or photography. All the pictures were shot in my apartment using natural light and/or the light available from nearby lamps. The title of the show Things: A Story comes from Georges Perec’s wonderful book Things: A Love Story. While I may have removed the word “Love” from the title I think love is very much at the heart of the matter when it comes to these particular books, and the still life’s are a small way of paying back and saying thanks.” George Porcari, 2023
Porcari’s new book - One Second to Live: Photography, Film, and the Corporeal in an Age of Extremes – published by Delancey Street Press will be featured in a DSP launch event to be held on the 6th of May.
