Matthew Pillsbury City Stages Portfolio

For information on purchasing a portfolio contact prints@aperture.org The Matthew Pillsbury City Stages Portfolio offers a paean to the craft and visionary potential of large-format, black-and-white photography as well as to the vibrancy of the cultural landscape at a transitional moment—a moment in which our very relationship to that landscape is increasingly mediated by omnipresent screens. Over the past decade, Pillsbury has built several extensive bodies of work—Screen Lives, Hours, and City Stages—that deal with different facets of contemporary metropolitan life and the passage of time. Working with black-and-white, 8-by-10 film and long exposures, Pillsbury captures a range of psychologically charged experiences in the urban environment, from isolation—tuned into our tablets, laptops, televisions, and phones—to crowded museums, parades, cathedrals, and even protests. Working primarily in New York but with forays to Paris, London, Venice, and other sites, the precise and concrete rendering of cityscapes, iconic landmarks, and interior spaces in his images provides a stage-like setting for the performance of human activity. Thanks to the extended exposures—some as long as an hour—the actions of both individuals and crowds are blurred and transformed into pure gesture and energy. Aperture Foundation has partnered with the artist and Amanasalto, Tokyo, to craft the Matthew Pillsbury City Stages Portfolio. Each portfolio includes six exquisite platinum prints from the artist’s different series, accompanied by a signed copy of the artist’s first monograph City Stages (Aperture, 2013).  The prints and signed book are presented in an elegant clothbound clamshell case, limited to an edition of thirty-five copies.

Portfolio of Six Platinum Prints, presented in a slipcase
Edition of 35 and 3 Artist’s Proofs
Paper Size: 11 x 14 inches
One print in each suite is signed, all prints are numbered, accompanied by a signed copy of the book

Matthew Pillsbury (b. 1973, Neuilly, France) received a BA in Fine Art from Yale University in 1995 and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2004. His work has been exhibited internationally and is widely held in private and museum collections, including the Sir Elton John Photography Collection, Museum of Modern Art, and Guggenheim Museum, all in New York; Musée du Louvre, Paris; and Tate Modern, London. In 2007, Pillsbury won the prestigious Prix HSBC pour la Photographie. His work is represented by Bonni Benrubi, New York; Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta; and Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver.