Michael Crouser can make you fall in love with photography again (if you’ve ever fallen out of it in the first place). His carefully printed darkroom objects, slow creations, and long-term observations are a welcome break in the present era of quick consumption and overly produced images. Crouser knows just when to hit the pause button to reveal the poetic moment. He takes us to a time where the beautiful black and white print can invoke a sense of wonder.
The exhibition title Sin Tiempo – ‘Without Time’ is apt not only for the subjects Crouser chooses to document, but also for his way of seeing. He seamlessly connects the present moment to the magic of street photography from earlier decades. This exhibit combines three portions of Crouser’s large body of work, including some of his street work, and also two in-depth projects, Los Toros, and Mountain Ranch. Bringing a gentle vision to fairly typically masculine scenes, he observes man and bull, in two different countries and two entirely different cultures. In the comparison, the ranchers appear as hard-working shepherds in contrast to the adversarial dance of the bullfight arena.
Crouser’s projects, and his way of working, feel refreshingly outside of the art hustle. One gets the sense that he would make these photographs, regardless of any acclaim or if anyone ever saw them, out of his own pure fascination. These slices of time are an available element of life, but it takes the patient observation of a tuned-in soul to preserve them as they are in Crouser’s prints.
Michael Crouser
Sin Tiempo
December 2, 2016 – January 27, 2017
Pictura Gallery
122 W 6th Street
Bloomington, IN 47404
www.picturagallery.com
© Michael Crouser
© Michael Crouser
© Michael Crouser
© Michael Crouser
© Michael Crouser
© Michael Crouser
© Michael Crouser
© Michael Crouser
