Lawrence Markey Inc.

John Riddy PRAETERITA–DILECTA

at Lawrence Markey
New York, NY

October 3–November 3, 2001

Lawrence Markey Gallery is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition of photographs by the London based photographer John Riddy.

The exhibition will consist of a selection (dilecta) of Riddy’s works suggested by John Ruskin’s autobiography, entitled Praeterita, a Latin term meaning “things gone over” or “gone past”.

John Riddy’s exquisitely printed silver gelatin photographs, often characterized by stillness and silence, echo the places and moods which Ruskin explored.

’John Riddy writes:
Praeterita is the title of John Ruskin’s autobiography, a title he chose for a book which often reads like a travelogue. Buildings and mountains appear as equals alongside family and friends, and Ruskin describes his life as he might a journey. His view is both retrospective and selective and the passing landscape is viewed through the window of a failing memory. Ruskin attends only to what gives him ‘joy to remember’ and this includes the people and places that allowed for happiness alongside those moments that were crucial to a growing sensibility . Thus an unhappy marriage is ignored and his time spent in Venice is dismissed as mere ‘bye-work’. The cherished moment is often the one that permitted simple absorption, halting the journey so as to see more clearly. Description gives way, ‘things bind and blend themselves together’, and the ending is flawed, visionary and exultant.

From June 2000–February 2001, an exhibition entitled Praeterita, comprised of 28 works by John Riddy, toured the United Kingdom as part of the program of events which marked the centenary of Ruskin’s death.

From April–July, 2000 a survey exhibition of John Riddy’s photographs was presented at the Camden Arts Centre, London.

Our most recent exhibition of work by John Riddy, entitled Photographs of Rome, was presented at Lawrence Markey September–October, 1999.