Saturday night hundreds of people took part at the special opening at Merry Karnowksy Gallery in LA for the Vivian Maier ‘A Life Discovered: Photographs from the Maloof Collection’.
It was well worth the long line and 45-minute wait outside the gallery to appreciate one of last discoveries of contemporary photography.
Vivan Maier was an amateur photographer, that for almost 30 years took pictures in the streets of NY, Chicago, Los Angeles and the Southwest as well as Philippines, France, Italy, Egypt and more with her Rolleiflex camera.
Portraits and scenes stolen from real life, like a gang of kids playing, a couple of mexican young brothers, portraits of elderly people, women in line at the local store. An indiscrete eye able to freeze reality at the right time and capture the intensity of the moment.
The result were over 15’000 negatives and more than 3’000 vintage prints by Meier herself kept hidden until her death.
Thanks to the collector Maloof, who first discovered the Meier heritage in an auction in 2007, and with the support of Tim Roth who opened the party yesterday night at the gallery, the beauty and talent of this urban photographer is finally revealed.
Over 100 shoots between edition of 15 and 40 unique original prints by Meier herself are exhibited in the LA show.
Meier’s life and work are also the subject of the upcoming documentary ‘Finding Vivian Maier’, while fortunately Powerhouse Books recently published the monography ‘Vivian Maier: Street Photographer’.
Giorgio Mannucci
‘A Life Discovered: Photographs from the Maloof Collection’.
Exhibition Dates: January 7th– January 28th 2012
mkgallery.com/
