Muntadas, CLOSED / LOCKED, Social Photography IX: Extended through October 30, 2021

Muntadas CLOSED / LOCKED September 23 - October 30, 2021 carriage trade 277 Grand St, 2nd Fl. New York, NY 10002 646-863-3874 Thursday - Sunday, 1-6pm Please Note: In accordance with the CDC guidelines, masks will be required for entry regardless of vaccination status. Thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation with this policy. For those that remained in New York City in the early spring of 2020, it was like inhabiting a ghost town. Street life evaporated and daily life took place almost exclusively indoors. Relief from the deafening silence came only in the form of all too frequent sirens both close and far away. Talking heads now appeared from their living rooms, eager to reassure us with nightly updates on hand washing and disinfectants. The news was a lifeline, a mirror, and a means to either instigate or dispel rumor as imaginations ran wild in a moment of fear. Meanwhile outside, the silence of the streets seemed to mock society's confidence in its own inevitability. As cities locked down across the globe, the artist enclave turned shopping district of Soho seemed particularly vacant. The absence of tourists pouring into the neighborhood and the flight of many locals when the city went into lockdown created an ominous void amplified by the plywood-clad facades that opulent flagship stores left behind in their wake. Once lending confidence to Soho’s embarrassment of riches through their structural elegance, cast iron buildings lining the cobblestoned streets turned foreboding in the emptiness. Employing a pre-emptive strategy to defend the luxury goods housed within, a sudden, spare beauty emerged in the absence of frenzied commerce, now muted by massive expanses of plywood grain. Often lost in historical memory are aspects of the recent past still “too close” to notice. As the past is foreshortened and nuanced memories collapse in favor of dramatic events, the media forges on, too impatient to dwell on the bits that don’t fit neatly into instant story lines rolled out on a daily basis. In an effort to preserve an extraordinary moment when one of the world’s largest cities ground to a halt, the newspaper project CLOSED / LOCKED by Muntadas provides a direct and unembellished account of his lower Manhattan neighborhood during the lockdown that began in March 2020. Walking through abandoned streets, Muntadas photographed the many “closed” signs found in storefronts nearby. With little precedent to rely on, the signs left the most pressing question (“for how long?”) unanswered. Also documenting the ubiquitous plywood cladding turned billboard for graffiti and political speech, the resulting images were collated into a newspaper format and accompanied by excerpts from Beatriz Colomina’s text on the profound effects of Covid on life in the city. In what might be seen as alternative media account of the early phases of a transformative period in urban experience whose outcome remains unclear,CLOSED / LOCKED archives a once in a lifetime moment in the history of downtown New York. Re-presented as large format images applied to the wall and accompanied by copies of the newspaper, the exhibition CLOSED / LOCKED will run concurrently with Social Photography IX, which has been extended through October 30, 2021. Antoni Muntadas was born in Barcelona in 1942 and has lived in New York since 1971. His work addresses social, political and communications issues such as the relationship between public and private space within social frameworks, and investigates channels of information and the ways they may be used to censor or promulgate ideas. His projects are presented via diverse media such as photography, video, publications, the Internet, installations, and urban interventions.(full bio) Thanks to Muntadas, Beatriz Colomina, Es Baluard, Hora Nova of Palma and the Spanish Consulate in New York. Thanks also to Lawrence B. Benenson, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and Mr. Jacques Louise Vidal, for their generous support. Photo credit: Muntadas, CLOSED / LOCKED, 2020. Social Photography IX Extended through October 30, 2021 Reopens: September 23, 2021 RECENT PRESS: "Social Photography IX" August, 2021 THEGUIDE.ART "Social Photography IX at carriage trade gallery" September, 2021, by Erik Laprade WHITEHOTMAGAZINE carriage trade 277 Grand St, 2nd Fl. New York, NY 10002 646-863-3874 Thursday - Sunday, 1-6pm