Charlie White Everything is American
January 13 – February 18, 2006
Main Gallery

Andrea Rosen Gallery is pleased to present Everything is American, a new series of photographs by Charlie White. From the gaze of a young Susan Atkins standing trial for the Tate-LaBianca murders, to the martyr-like pathos of an injured United States gymnast, the portraits in White's new series create an arresting tension between the fictional and the recognizable. In these photographs, no image is truly innocent: even at their most anonymous and lyrical, each subject in the series bears the overtones of an inescapable American narrative.

As White's first extended exploration of portraiture, this body of work is a departure from the narrative themes of his past photographic series. The intimate focus of these seven images offers a provoking meditation on the interplay between historical characters, fictional personae and classical subjects. We are invited to see both the potential historical import of an unknown individual, as in the haunting Jody, and to consider the contemporary connotations of mythic figures, as in Champion. In each case, the pleasure of looking at the human figure is both heightened and troubled by the intimation of a broader significance.

Everything is American will exhibit concurrently at Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York and f a projects London.

Charlie White is Assistant Professor and Director of the Intermedia program in the School of Fine Arts, University of Southern California. Recent exhibitions include ‘Otherwise: Phantastic Art', Oberösterreichische Landesmuseen, Linz, Austria; Norton Museum of Art, Florida; ‘I Feel Mysterious', Palm Beach Institute for Contemporary Art. Upcoming exhibitions include ‘Dark Places', Santa Monica Museum of Art, California.