Leonard Sussman
Photographs From The Antipodes
November 3 - December 10, 2021
EXHIBITION REVIEW
Leonard Sussman: Photographs from the Antipodes
The Empty Circle Gallery
Exhibition Review
Greer Sinclair
11/11/21
Off Third Avenue in Brooklyn, The Empty Circle Gallery is transporting New Yorkers to
the farthest reaches of the known world. On view through December 10th, the exhibition Leonard
Sussman: Photographs from the Antipodes presents Sussman’s photographs from his travels to
Antarctica and the Svalbard Archipelago. Stark, brutalist landscapes of ice and isolation are
warmed through Sussman’s curious gaze and imbued with a magical realism. While the
photographs are devoid of any evidence of human inhabitants, the photographs nevertheless
capture the tension of the gaze between explorer and the unexplored.
In an exclusive interview with Sussman, he reflected, “Those are places I felt like no one,
or extremely few humans, have ever been and that really is an attraction, it’s an amazing thing.”
While these landscapes have seduced and confounded explorers for centuries, Sussman
photographs the dramatic conditions of the austere landscapes with an arresting intimacy. “I feel
this kind of complicated love, I wouldn’t say love-hate, it’s just this love and this feeling -
feeling so fortunate to be there but feeling like these are just magical places. The scale is so
immense […] the immensity of scale is a little frightening.” Looking at the photographs, it is
easy to feel that same attraction and awe; an intense curiosity mixed with apprehension. In a
centerpiece photograph of the exhibition, a massive glacier floats in a seemingly black sea. Yet
the ice seems aglow with internal light, and Sussman captures a surreal spectrum of color
emanating from within the cold white façade. The glacier appears close enough to touch, but
there is a feeling that one would experience supernatural consequences in touching something so
perfect.
Climate change is an invisible specter haunting the photographs. An awareness of the
devastating consequence of human expansion lends a vivid poignancy and urgency to the
photographs. In experiencing the pristine majesty and profound stillness of the mountains and
glaciers, one cannot help but also consider their very real vulnerability. Sussman is intentional in
his hope that his photographs will educate viewers on the power and fragility of these remote
environments. “The thing about it, you generally don’t look at my photographs and say, ‘ah, I see
what’s happening because of climate change,’ when you look at them, from my point of view,
what’s important is to see that these are these incredibly beautiful, magical places that need to
continue to exist, and they won’t if things keep going the way they’re going.”
The Empty Circle is pleased to announce Leonard Sussman : Photographs From The Antipodes. The exhibition opens Wednesday, November 3, and will be on view through December 10, 2021.
New York based photographer Leonard Sussman has photographed regions around the globe for over 50 years. This latest exhibition highlights photographs from his travels to both Antarctica and the Svalbard Archipelago in the High Arctic of Norway.
Sussman’s landscapes capture the wild and austere beauty of the regions, calling attention to their unforgiving strength yet fragile state. Traveling to remote and magnificent places where sea, ice, and land meet, Sussman helps us see what is an essential part of our planet, and one he believes essential to preserve.
Sussman’s work is a meditation on time. His perception of time while in the field expands and contracts much like the subject matter he endeavors to capture. A photograph that takes many hours to set up can feel like minutes to him. In some cases, the photographs on view have required multiple trips over several years to produce, a daunting task to most of us, but, as Sussman’s work reminds, a drop in the ocean of time for Earth and these majestic landscapes.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I photograph because I have to. I work intuitively; the act of creating a photograph occurs on both subconscious and conscious levels. Form, time, light and good fortune are critical elements. Photography involves much more than the rational. Non-visual stimuli including sound, smell, and the tactile, help to define my imagery.
The challenge of photography is in seeing, feeling and transforming. How can I capture what it is that is essential to preserve? Though the process is affected by my reason, the more direct connection comes from experience and relationship to the places that I love. When working in the field, time disappears – hours seem to pass in minutes, keeping me in the present. It is a difficult, joyful and magical experience.
I approach the landscape with the intent to capture my relationship to the space. Scenes are compressed and abstracted. My imagery concerns movement, space and time, boundaries and transitions. It plays with fine details, texture, depth, flattening, and perspective. Scale is often intentionally difficult to decipher.
Viewing the images requires patience.
ARTIST BIO
Leonard Sussman (b.1947, San Francisco, CA) has been a photographer for over 50 years. He received a BA in Art from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA from the Pratt Institute and is Professor Emeritus of Art at Baruch College of the City University of New York. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and Europe. One person exhibitions include Landscapes of the High Arctic at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 2016, and Photographs of the Camargue at The Shed in Brooklyn, NY in 2014. His work has been featured in such publications as Entre vents, Racines et Rocs, Par les Traverses du Mont Ventoux (La Part Des Anges éditions, 2009) and First Doubt: Optical Confusion in Modern Photography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008) and Hills of Home: The Rural Ozarks of Arkansas, 1975 (etchings and drawings). Public collections include the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of the City of New York, The Allan Chasanoff Collection, Yale University Art Gallery, Citicorp New York, Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Instituto Nazionale della Grafica e Fotografia in Rome, and The Italian Foundation for Photography in Turin. Since 2014 Sussman has been photographing the Svalbard Archipelago in the High Arctic of Norway. In November 2018, he spent 20 days photographing in the Falklands (Malvinas), the South Georgia Islands, and the Antarctic Peninsula. He prints all of his own work, analog and digital. Sussman lives and works in New York City. www.leonardsussman.com
For further information and to schedule and appointment, contact: info@emptycirclespace.com