PRESS LINKS FOR THE EXHIBITION    Another Bouncing Ball

New York artist Peter Sutherland is always being it while doing it.  Working in a similar manner to filmmakers the Maysles brothers and Werner Herzog, or documentary photographers William Eggleston, Alec Soth or Roe Etheridge, Sutherland blurs the lines between art and life, downplaying the need to disguise the real with artistic tropes to a point where the real not only appears beautiful, it simply is.  He is an ethnographer’s ethnographer, fully immersing himself in the lives, actions and moments of the cultures and subcultures he documents.  Whether producing documentary films and photographs, or zines and limited edition books, Sutherland attempts to not only make a relevant cultural document, but to successfully convey an actual lived experience that says as much about himself as it does his subjects.  Recognizing that the act of documenting is a provocation—either through revelatory imperative or political mandate—his works lay his subjects bare, and as one critic notes, Sutherland has the uncanny knack of capturing the “holy shit moment” on each shoot.

Sutherland’s projects include the critically acclaimed film documenting the bike messenger culture in Manhattan, Pedal, which debuted at the SxSW Film Festival and was later acquired by the Sundance Channel, Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project distributed by Zeitgeist Films, and numerous books including Autograf on the New York graffiti scene, Buck Shots published by powerHouse books, and Hot Coals Only, the first catalog on the artist’s work published on the occasion of an exhibition at Hope Gallery in Los Angeles.  Sutherland has had solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Berlin, Melbourne and Paris.  Sutherland is also a contributing photographer to numerous magazines including i-D, VICE and XXL

In addition to examples of his photographs and zines, the centerpiece of his exhibition at Lawrimore Project is the video, Stabby Man.  Acting as almost a mandala, the infinite loop of Stabby Man pushes the simple act of balancing a switchblade on the palm to the realm of the transcendent.  Like all of Sutherland’s work it is what it is, but it also conjures so much more.