Davies, Lucy, Roe Ethridge: Commercial Break, The ... - Greengrassi

Davies, Lucy, Roe Ethridge: Commercial Break, The Telegraph, London, March 25, 2011
Roe Ethridge: Commercial break
Roe Ethridge's pictures blur the boundaries between advertising and art photography.
His work has put him in line for this year's Deutsche Börse prize
'Thanksgiving 1984' (2009) by Roe Ethridge
Photo: © Roe Ethridge. Courtesy of Greengrassi London/Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
Roe Ethridge studied photography at the Atlanta College of Art, but to make money after
he graduated, he found work as a catalogue photographer. 'That's the main photo
industry in Atlanta,' he says. He has since become one of the most sought-­‐after
commercial photographers in New York, where his expertly polished simulations of
reality appear in the best of the fashion and lifestyle glossies.
All the while, though, he has been quietly making his own artworks, which are best
described as expertly sequenced groups of images. They pivot on the plastic nature of
photography – that is, how easily pictures can be replicated and recombined to form
new visual impressions. He often borrows from images already in circulation, re-­photographing
a sticker on his daughter's school book, for example, or scanning the
pattern on a piece of fabric, and combines them with out-­‐takes from his own commercial

work, harking back to a time when photographers such as Irving Penn and Man Ray sat
comfortably in both commercial and art camps.
This collision of high and low modes is central to his art. The manufactured perfection of
the commercial world injects his work with a kitsch sheen, and while his portraits of
women nod to Picasso and Matisse, they also twinkle with humour. 'It became obvious
that pulling things from one side to the other was how photography had to work for me,'
he says.
Ethridge, 41, never intends his work to generate a precise meaning. In his mind, the
most disappointing gallery experience is when he feels he has finished with the
exhibition before he has even left the building. 'I think work should take some time to
open up,' he says, 'and the intentionally mysterious combinations of images in my work
are to ensure that you continue to mull over it for some time after you have seen it.'
His show at the Arles Photography Festival, for which he is nominated for this year's
Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, is meant to radiate the idea of seasons. 'It's not
conceptual,' he says. 'It's about whatever sticks. I don't have a script. I have an idea that I
work around, but don't necessarily solve.'

Wilson, Michael, Roe Ethridge: Le Luxe, Time Out, New York, May 31
Review: Roe Ethridge, “Le Luxe”
The artist’s photos only seem to tell a story.
LeLe
Photograph: Courtesy Andrew Kreps Gallery
Roe Ethridge’s photographs at once deny and utterly depend on the possibility of narrative. Self-consciously
diverse in terms of origin and theme, they acquire meaning only when considered en masse, though their order is
never quite linear or even logical. Ethridge shares with many of his contemporaries an absolute ease with the
process of shifting between original and appropriated images, using the camera as both instrument and sampler.
As “Le Luxe” demonstrates, this constitutes both a freedom and a challenge: If you can do anything, what do you
do? In the case of this particular show, which contains new work alongside older shots, the answer lies in
examining a range of ideas around the good life alluded to in its title, as well as in a more random exploration of
life in the city.
A few photos were taken as part of a commission to document the construction of Goldman Sachs’ new
headquarters, but they don’t stand out from an outwardly heterogeneous pack. Equally if not more imposing are
the American Beauty–evoking image of a plastic bag drifting past a red-painted wall, a weirdly doctored take on
the promo poster for turn-of-the-’90s flick Point Break and a pixelated close-up of a gift-wrap bow. Added to this
mix is a sculptural component in the form of two empty shelving units, one in pine, the other shiny stainless steel.
Seemingly awaiting “content,” these mute objects take on an almost heraldic role in this context, signifying the
artist’s role as collector, collator and archivist.

Rosenberg, Karen, Roe Ethridge: Le Luxe, The New York Times, NYC, June 16, 2011.
ROE ETHRIDGE: ‘Le Luxe’
525 West 22nd Street, Chelsea
Through July 2
Visitors to Roe Ethridge’s latest show, his fifth solo at Kreps, must maneuver
around a pine shelving unit. It’s just one of several barriers breached in this wry
exhibition.
Here, as is his wont, Mr. Ethridge mixes commissioned and more personal work
with a smart editorial sensibility. The commercial, in this case, is fairly distinct: a
six-year assignment from the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which hired him
to document the construction of its new headquarters downtown. One of the
pleasures of this show is seeing Mr. Ethridge apply his subtle, scattershot
approach to a powerful corporation with a tightly controlled image.
He begins with the 2005 groundbreaking, zooming in on Senator Hillary Clinton
and Henry Paulson, then the Goldman chairman, so that a public ceremony
becomes a tense tête à tête. Later, in “Sand Pit 3,” he captures the swirling,
primordial ooze of the foundation. And in an exterior shot from 2009, he catches
the edge of a banner so that the word “Money” intrudes on the rising building
frame. (That frame, by the way, is echoed in the shelving unit and in a shorter,
stainless-steel bookcase.) More images from the site can be found in an
accompanying book, also titled “Le Luxe,” which may be an easier entry point for
viewers who are new to Mr. Ethridge’s work.
Conventional photodocumentary narrative seems entirely absent from the second
half of the show, where a rephotographed poster from the movie “Point Break”
(with Mr. Ethridge in Patrick Swayze’s role) hangs opposite dusky shots of the
Tokyo skyline. There’s a pixellated image of a giant red bow, too, though Mr.
Ethridge has made clear that he is not one to tie things up in a pretty package.
A version of this review appeared in print on June 17, 2011, on page C27 of the New York edition with the
headline: Roe Ethridge: ‘Le Luxe’.

Lokke, Maria, Roe Ethridge: “Le Luxe”, The New Yorker, NYC, June 28, 2011.
ROE ETHRIDGE’S “LE LUXE”
From 2005 to 2010, the photographer Roe Ethridge was commissioned to photograph the construction
of the Goldman Sachs building in lower Manhattan. Documents from this project serve as the backbone
of his most recent book, “Le Luxe,” which pieces together an eclectic and often mysterious portrait of
luxury culture. In the book, photographs from various stages of the building’s development alternate
with
seemingly random glimpses of the odd corners and loose ends of American leisure and luxury class:
newspaper clippings on exotic pets running loose in Florida, screen grabs from a live feed of the
Rockaway Beach surf line, a photo of a floating “I

Setareh, Candice, Roe Ethridge: Le Luxe II BHGG, Hellion magazine, Los Angeles, June 24, 2011.
(© Roe Ethridge. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by the Douglas M. Parker Studio)
Roe Ethridge: Le Luxe II BHGG
By Candice Setareh
June 24th 2011
The Gagosian Gallery’s are nothing short of chic, modern, and highly admired. With eleven
gallery locations around the world; in cities such as New York, London, Paris and Rome- its high
acclaim is of no surprise and without many objections. It’s the only art gallery of it’s kind to
gracefully carry an influential appeal that is sought after and often imitated. So, it’s not a surprise
that many of the exhibitions have gathered more guests then most major modern art museums.
Thus, the reason for the many comparisons to a phenomenon. With the support and admiration
from art enthusiasts and the general public alike, - artists consider having their pieces displayed at
any of the Gagosian galleries -something similar to a euphoric experience. (I’m sure Picasso and
Willem would have agreed) Thus, the opportunity to view pieces from the likes of ;Pablo Picasso,
Willem De Kooning, Damien Hirst, and Joel Morrison are priceless and should not be
overlooked.
The newest artist who has joined this exclusive and fortunate group is- Roe Ethridge. The
Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills is presenting an exhibition of his photos from June 9, 2011
through July 22, 2011. His unique interpretation of imagery in combination with his seamless
approach to manipulating and duplicating photographs, makes his pieces, at their best- truly
authentic to himself. The pieces from Le Luxe don’t stray far from Ethridge’s spontaneous yet

staged approach to capturing imagery from different genres. For example, he combines
commercial images already in circulation in other contexts with conceptual pieces such as,
vintage movie posters, and fashion models. He is clearly talented at seamlessly imposing his view
on the juxtaposition of objects to his audience. For example; “in this exhibition, he juxtaposes
polished photographs of posed models, such as Marloes Horst (2010) and Louise (2011), with
gritty still life’s of ashtrays (Butts 1, Butts 2, and Butts 3, 2010) and the grainy pages of a
newspaper (Plane Crash at Sea, 2004-2011).” (Gagosian Gallery) Lastly, it seems as though he is
driven by the concept of presenting an allusion that is often too difficult to ascertain. He edits
the pieces with a controlled complexity that no one but himself will ever probably understand,
yet this dose of mystery is exactly what is drawing people in by the masses. Le Luxe will continue
to show at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills through July 22, 2009. Visit their website at
gagosian.com for more information

Prize fighters, Time Out London, April 13, 2011
Prize fighters
The final four in the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2011, rated
and reviewed
As the Photographers’ Gallery gets a facelift, we go underground to see the Deutsche
Börse Photography Prize in a new venue and to rate the finalists’ chances in this £30k
shutter showdown
Roe Ethridge
For a fluorescent lesson in the dissonances of capitalism, see Ethridge. The American artist
wilfully ignores the barrier between commercial photography and art, with the pleasing result
that you’re never quite sure if he’s trying to sell you something. That bland beauty at
Thanksgiving dinner, sandwiched between a weirdly shiny turkey and a Japanese wall
hanging: what is she offering, exactly? And why does she look so wrong? Actually, she’s a
model, and the food has been styled. But that helps only in the way that buying a lipstick
helps a woman feel beautiful: it’s a temporary solution, inadequate to the scale of the
problem. There’s another image of her, not included here, in a daring emerald dress. The
whole exercise was originally a shoot for fancy magazine Visionaire. That doesn’t help, either.
The hanging speaks of one venerable culture, the dinner of another. The retouched babe in
between doesn’t speak – fantasies don’t – but her silence is infinitely troubling.
Ethridge comprehends greed, of all kinds. His still life of rotting fruit is so luscious it switches
off atavistic alarms: you want to stroke the mouldy strawberries, lick the superannuated
nectarine. His flawless images laugh at our obsession with perfection, and this flawed
exhibition, in its unforgivingly cavernous temporary home, echoes with that amusement.
Verdict Ethridge for President.

Nina Caplan: Roe Ethridge, Time Out, London, November 15, 2010.
Roe Ethridge
Until Wed Dec 22 Greengrassi, 1A Kempsford Rd, London, SE11 4NU
Roe Ethridge, '4th Floor', 2008 -­‐ Greengrassi
Time Out says
In 2005, Goldman Sachs commissioned Roe Ethridge to photograph its new headquarters near Ground
Zero, which opened in 2009. He finished last month, so it seems safe to assume the three images here
are a very small proportion of his overall haul. But that's appropriate, since Ethridge's images are often
more about what he isn't photographing than what he is.
So, these large-format shots of the pre-operational trade floor are all floor - dusty and footprint-pocked
- and no trade. There's no reference to 9/11 or the financial crisis or to the horrific on-site accident in
2007 when a nylon sling broke and dumped seven tonnes of metal, seriously injuring an architect.
Except, maybe there is. Dust is, after all, a mightily flexible substance: look long enough at these
images and you'll start to see the white dust of the Twin Towers, the dust that signifies construction
(and destruction) and the metaphorical dust that our financial institutions' reputations have become.
There are oddly assorted other images here (including some unpleasant glossy advertising pictures of a
perky-nippled pubescent model in the shower) and a set of shelves. There are geometrically beautiful
pictures of some house Ethridge liked somewhere. But it's the '4th Floor' series that stays with you - an
almost textured loveliness, the prints without feet, the tyre treads with no wheels. Ethridge should have
called the exhibition Ozymandias, after Shelley's overweening monarch; certainly, given the current
state of the Western world, it is easy to look on these works and despair.

Amoreen Armetta: Roe Ethridge. Frieze, London, Sept 23, 2008.
Roe Ethridge
09.04.08-­‐10.04.08 Andrew Kreps Gallery
In Roe Ethridge’s photograph Oysters, 2008, six gleaming bivalves are arranged
on a crisp bed of sea salt that has been poured onto a sturdy white plate resting
on a rustic wooden table. The composition is bathed in sunlight. Initially
seductive, on second glance one discovers this is not a great photograph: The
shadows are a bit harsh, the angle is awkward, and the framing is skewed. In no
time at all, the viewer no longer really desires these oysters. Similarly, in Myla
with Column, 2008, what at first glance seems to be a classical nude turns out to
be just odd. Not Vice-­‐magazine odd, but still too knowing to be earnest and too
well crafted to be amateur. The shadows are harsh again, the neo-­‐geo ’80s
backdrop—complete with Roman column—comes off as neither ironic nor
funny, and the lighting and color palette are reminiscent of ’40s pinups. This is
an aesthetic pioneered by Paul Outerbridge, one of Ethridge’s primary
influences, who presciently opted for color photography in the ’30s and fused (as
Ethridge does) a commercial and fine-­‐art aesthetic until his increasingly
fetishistic nudes got him into trouble. Ethridge dials up Outerbridge’s stylistic
oddities; in this exhibition, single images are more complex than those in his
previous series, and they rely less on adjacent works for meaning. Each
photograph leads viewers through a gamut of reactions. Because seduction isn’t
his only aim, Ethridge’s images, which are not so many things they are frequently
made out to be (Lynchian, or banal, or mere documentation of an artist’s
decadent lifestyle), seduce.

Issue 97 March 2006
Roe Ethridge
Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, USA
Photography is all about arbitrary borders, about the illusion of self-containment and completeness. We
want to believe that we’ve got the whole picture. In his large-format photographs of often exorbitantly
bland subjects, Roe Ethridge undermines that very certitude. A pine tree, a watermelon, suburban
signage, a few portraits – the work appears to be little more than the erratic product of an unsettled,
expansive attention. Yet taken together in his various series (this show featured selections from two) or
looked at generally, Ethridge’s groupings allow his images to bounce off each other, their cumulative
effect suggestive rather than illustrative of his fundamental inquiry into our ready assumption that
photography will tell us something true.
‘County Line Plus Town and Country’ was a selection from two recent series, the C-type prints unified
by their exploration of various borders and boundaries, imaginary and real. In Hedge, Miami (2004) the
surface is dominated by the rust and dried jalapeno-coloured leaves of a hedge, its function revealed in
the lower left corner, where a tiny bit of brick pavement peeks out. That small revelation converts what
is almost an abstract colour and shape study into a baneful, eerie creature. A similarly apparently
benign but actually quite sinister image is Canada (near Banff) (2005), a snowy, wooded pastoral
traversed by a stream. The natural border is completely overpowered by the bristling remains of a

forest devastated by logging. Dense clusters contrast with more sparsely flecked areas, and from a few
feet away the photograph has the erratic profile of a denial-filled polygraph session.
Other kinds of separations are indicated by images of commercial mini-mall signs. Borrowing from the
former Main Street idea of wooden shingles, the individual strip-mall residents list themselves on one
big roadside billboard. The odd juxtapositions – a nail salon, an off-track betting joint, a kosher diner, a
pizza parlour, a launderette and video game shop – are offered up for view with editorializing or
judgement in Cedarhurst Mall Sign (2004). They are facts of suburban American life, obviously
peculiar when extracted from their usual surroundings. Ethridge shoots the signs at an angle,
emphasizing letter shapes and colour choices, the eccentric line-ups supplying their own commentary;
liquor stores and weight-loss centres dominate. The particular economic moment of such signage
stands in contrast to Town and Country, Liberty, New York (2005), which shows a dilapidated
bungalow-style store in a bedraggled corner of upstate New York, with the words ‘Town and Country’,
aspiring to some upscale respectability, scripted across its rust-coloured façade. A young black kid sits
on the bench outside, and the image is bisected by a telephone pole bristling with American flags.
Alongside the exuberant strip-mall signs, the once aspirational, now passé script is like a young man
grown old.
Clearly referencing Thomas Ruff, the Bechers and especially Chris Williams, Ethridge also shows
unexpected painterly influences, particularly in his portraits. Holly at Marlow and Sons (2005) is like a
merging of a Madonna by Sandro Botticelli (in the tilt of the head, a gesture at once contemplative and
judging) and Jean-Luc Godard (the young woman an echo of Anna Karina, in her impenetrable,
futuristic black and white turtleneck) – in itself no mean feat. The blue-filtered Mary Beth Holcomb
(2005), with her downcast eyes and almost surreally truncated arm, could be a modern-day cousin to
Jan Vermeer’s women. Most unsettling and effective is the seemingly drab Rick Holcomb (2005). The
microscopically close image – you can actually see his contact lenses – shows a man with a squarish,
stubbled face, a sideward glance and open mouth approaching a smirk, as though he’s hatching some
plan. With the face slightly shadowed against a completely neutral grey background, Ethridge achieves
something close to a Caravaggian sense of emotional betrayal in what is essentially a head shot.
Paul Outerbridge is the steady backbeat to Ethridge’s work. Like Outerbridge, Ethridge incorporates
the ridiculous and the sublime, ignoring the artificial conceits that divide photography into fine art and
commercial work, embracing whatever will further his investigation into the singularity of the
commonplace. Ethridge assumes a certain sophistication of his viewer, born of familiarity with the
conventions of editorial photography. By showing tableaux of determined ordinariness, Ethridge
manages to convey the much larger context from which these are suggestive rather than definitive
extracts. The approach is playful, with a humour that mercifully softens the bleakness: what could be
merely reportage becomes.
Megan Ratner