David Zwirner is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs by Roy DeCarava (1919–2009) curated by Ebony L. Haynes at the gallery’s 606 N Western Avenue location in Los Angeles. On view will be the sound i saw, DeCarava’s unwavering exploration of the relationship between the visual and the aural created between the late 1940s and the 1960s. First assembled as a handmade artist’s book, it was later condensed and exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1983. This body of work juxtaposes images of everyday life in New York City—elegiac street corners, deliverymen working, children playing, riders waiting for the train—with images of jazz musicians, glimpsed both mid-set and off-stage in moments of repose. Taken together, DeCarava’s tonally rich silver gelatin photographs redirect the viewer’s attention to the sounds of life, offering—as he noted—“images for the head and for the heart.”
Presented in an adjacent gallery will be a listening room inspired by the artist’s personal playlists and favorite jazz albums.
The exhibition at David Zwirner Los Angeles marks only the fourth solo presentation of DeCarava’s work in LA, following on from the acclaimed 2019 exhibition Roy DeCarava: The Work of Art at The Underground Museum. In 1996, Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective was presented at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and prior to that the artist’s work was featured at the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies in 1982.
