FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BUCKET RIDER GALLERY continues the 2008 schedule with This is gonna take one more night., our first major solo exhibition of new photographs by Jason Lazarus, in Galleries One and Two.
Chicago, IL, March 7, 2008- Bucket Rider soldiers on toward spring with our first solo exhibition of photographs by Jason Lazarus. We will present selected works from several of Lazarus’ recent series. In Gallery One, we present new works in his Self Portrait as an Artist series, several works from Living with a Portrait, and two commissions from his Wright auction house project. In Gallery Two, we present three new works from NIRVANA.
Jason Lazarus has steadily built a body of work that reveals new insights into self-representation, authenticity, and public versus private modes of communication. His works fall somewhere between confession and reportage, illuminating personal and single moments that fold into a larger context of public discourse. He has expanded his investigation of what contemporary self-portraiture means and how it can be depicted by photographing the photographs and icons that people live with each day in Living with a Portrait. He has turned the playfulness that can be found in his early Self Portrait as an Artist series on the masterworks of Wright’s recent auction, creating photographic statements of what it means, both personally and politically, to live through and on the art that captivates us. In NIRVANA, Lazarus takes a very personal moment, when one is first introduced to a seminal, life-changing rock band, and creates a living cross section of the way we come to grips with our own identity within a larger cultural framework. The most recent additions to his Self Portrait series see Lazarus removing himself from the proceedings. Instead these pictures document the world around him. His own absence from images like Entire Duration of ‘America’s Answer’ Fireworks Package ($99.95), Independence Day 2007 or Inside Cabrini Green Housing Project (Before Razing), ultimately reveal his presence as they personal and political manifestations of the self. A new monograph, The last rose of summer on my nightstand, a collection of found photographs and text collected and curated by the artist, and a catalogue of recent work published on occasion of this exhibition will both be available through the gallery.
Jason Lazarus received his M.F.A. in photography from Columbia College. He has taught photography at Columbia College, Robert Morris College, and the Marwen Foundation. He is currently teaching at Wright College. Lazarus has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and D3 Projects, Santa Monica. He will be part of the forthcoming exhibition, Black Is Black Ain’t, curated by Hamza Walker, opening at the Renaissance Society, in April 2008. This is his second exhibition with Bucket Rider Gallery.