Former Advance photographer's work at MoMA
Michael Falco's
photo of pre-9/11 landfill with Manhattan skyline in the distance is
part of 'Landscape' show
Staten Island Advance - February 23, 2005
A pre-Sept. 11 photo of the Fresh Kills landfill by
a former Advance photographer has entered the Museum of Modern Art
collection, considered the finest in the Western Hemisphere.
The 9-foot-wide color print, shot by Michael Falco in 2000, will be
exhibited at MoMA later this week in "Groundswell: Constructing the
Contemporary Landscape," a show about landscape design.
Falco said he's "pretty happy about it. It's a great thing for an
artist to be in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art."
His photograph, a wide panorama of the 2,200-acre dump with the
Manhattan skyline in the distance, has been exhibited previously.
It was shown in 2001-2002 in "Fresh Kills: Artists Respond to the
Closure of the Landfill" at Snug Harbor Cultural Center's Newhouse
Center for Contemporary Art. Several nationally prominent artists,
including Rackstraw Downes and Merle Ukeles Laderman, were
represented in that show.
GREW UP IN BULLS HEAD
Falco, a 40-year-old Staten Island native, "grew up in Bulls Head,
knowing the dump, smelling the dump," but he was surprised years
later by its complexity and beauty.
"Now that it's inactive, it's really quite beautiful -- tall grass,
rolling hills. It could be Montana," he said.
Historic events -- the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, and the
reopening of the landfill two days later -- greatly changed the
significance of "New York Skyline From Fresh Kills."
Not only does the composition include the Twin Towers, which were
destroyed that day, it encompasses the landfill, where the ruins
were sifted.
Some of his landfill images were used in a 2003 National Geographic
edition.
STARTED LATE
Falco became interested in photography relatively late. He was a
senior at the College of Staten Island when he acquired his first
camera.
"I was in a band, playing guitar," he said. "I was not thinking
about making a living as a photographer."
He began taking photographs for the Advance as an intern in 1990. He
was a staff photographer until 1998 and has continued to take
photographs for the newspaper on a free-lance basis.
"Basically, I learned about photography on the job," he said.
"Newspapers are a great place to learn. There's a lot of diversity
and they're throwing work at you constantly."
Falco's panoramic commission for the new St. George Ferry Terminal,
"Where Marsh Meets the Sea," will be unveiled later this year.
He shot the photographs for "Along Martin Luther King: Travels on
America's Black Main Street," written by Jonathan Tilove and
published in 2002 by Random House.
Twenty of Falco's images are in "Caddell Dry Dock: 100 Years
Harborside," a large format portrait of the marine repair complex.
That work is on exhibit at the Noble Maritime Collection, Snug
Harbor, through next February.
He said he is "spending a lot of time these days in Hasidic and
Amish communities" amassing photographs for a book tentatively
titled "Growing Up Orthodox."
Falco is married to Kerry Diamond, a former Advance reporter who is
beauty director of Harper's Bazaar. They live in Gramercy Park,
Manhattan.
"Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape" will open
tomorrow and continue through May 16 at MoMA, 11 West 53rd St.,
Manhattan.
By Michael J. Fressola
Reprinted here with permission from the
|
|
