Joe Maloney, “Blue Fence, Asbury Park, New Jersey,” 1980
Joe Maloney, Seaside Heights, New Jersey, 1980
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Joe Maloney is that guy, the one who works on two levels at the same time. He takes what we know, what we see, our cultural vernacular, and translates it through the lens of the camera so that he speaks in all languages without ever saying a word. It is seen, it is felt, it is… understood.
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And yet, there is more, always more.
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“Maloney was a member of the stable of legendary photographers at LIGHT, the preeminent New York gallery of contemporary photography which included many notable photographers whose work in color helped revolutionize the acceptance of the medium. Maloney, along with Stephen Shore, Mitch Epstein, Carl Toth and others helped set the stage for today’s generation of photographers whose use of color is automatic and not necessarily a conscious choice.”
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So begins the text for Maloney’s exhibition of previously-unseen work now showing at Rick Wester Fine Art, New York, through August 16.
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The text continues, “At a time when polychromatic images were radical and their validity fought over, Maloney found the subject matter closest to him, suburbia, the receding rural landscape and the cultural oddities that America had created of them bathed in sunlight of enormous emotional range and conflict. Late, electric, raking sun cut swathes of scenery into patterns sewn together by streets and parks populated by pleasure seekers, poseurs, and other characters caught up in what Bruce Springsteen sang as ‘this runaway American Dream” Maloney’s exploration of the Jersey Shore and in particular Asbury Park is fueled by the urge to discover something immediate, concrete and candid within the artifice of the resort town culture.”
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Through Maloney’s lens, we see a world we know, a world in which we once lived, as children and adults on summer break. His photographs are at once nostalgic, and something more; they embrace the enthnography of the Jersey Shore without trying too hard. There is no tongue planted in cheek, there is no pedestal to be placed upon or knocked down a peg. There is no self-consciousness, no self-referential narcissism. There is simply a time and a place and the people who lived it, just as they live it today.
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Joe Maloney :: Asbury Park & the Jersey Shore, c. 1979
Joe Maloney, Two Girls, Seaside Heights, New Jersey, 1980