Paul Sunday’s “Improv / Archive” Exhibition at New York Public Library

September 29, 2016
paul sunday
From Archive / Improv series, photograph on baryta paper, 24 x 32 inches, 2016. © Paul Sunday

The New York Public Library invited New York Film Academy Photography instructor Paul Sunday to create a new body of work for a solo show at their Mid-Manhattan branch. The Photo Walls in Picture Collection Exhibition Series “Archive / Improv” is on view from September 2016 through February of 2017 and is curated by Arezoo Moseni.

“In response to the location, I will re-contextualize seldom viewed images from my archive to explore the boundaries between photography, sculpture and installation,” says Sunday.

“These pictures consider the photograph as an object. My studio is a laboratory, a space for experimentation,” added Sunday. “It is bursting with stuff, equipment, lights, scraps of bric-a-brac, and old props but above all an extensive archive of photographic materials, the residue of twenty-five years of image making. I use all of this as material for improvisation. Riffing on the vocabularies of installation, sculpture, and collage, I endeavor to transform mundane objects into something poetic. I am fortunate to have space and time for contemplating my obsession with vision, light and the energy of ordinary things.”

In addition to his teaching at NYFA’s photography school, Sunday is a photographer, painter, and curator. He discovered his love of photography while working on avant-garde theater and performance projects in New York. His earliest images were documents of performances and portraits of actors. In the 1990s, the artist created thousands of pictures for magazines and luxury brands. His portraits of artists and celebrities have been published in Paper, aRude, Interview, Soma and German Vogue among others.

For more information on Paul Sunday’s “Archive / Improv,” please CLICK HERE.