Jackpot

“Kevin Landers may be the best artist you’ve never heard of. For 17 years, the New York photographer has been scouring the Lower East Side, locating beauty and humor in the humblest spots…” —Time Out New York In a remarkable debut from a rapidly rising photographer, Kevin Landers intimately connects us with the quotidian objects and moments that make up the topography of New York City. Jackpot is a 17-year retrospective of his candid and unvarnished encounters with entities and artifacts that capture the grittiness, incongruity, and simplicity of a metropolis that harbors relics of all proportions. “…the images function as a kind of survey of New York during an era in which downtown transformed itself from an immigrant and artist district to one with Whole Foods on major cross-streets and luxury high-rises on unlikely avenues like the Bowery. Mr.Landers ignores the new arrivals and focuses on the old guard….And while [the images] owe plenty to color photography pioneers like William Eggleston and Stephen Shore—saturated prints, lingering on the odd, quirky object—they are grounded in a locale and moment of their own.” —The New York Times “A survey of the color photographs that Landers made between 1990 and 2007 showcases a slacker sensibility too amused and blasé to be seriously cynical. Like a grungier Martin Parr or Tony Feher with a camera, Landers makes pictures of people and products that tease Pop mercilessly. Studio still-lifes of panhandlers’ cups, three-card-monte cardboard totems, and plastic bags snagged on broken branches rescue their subjects as found sculpture….Call it photography of the absurd, but nobody does it better.” —The New Yorker