We're pleased to announce that our next exhibit will feature black-and-white, silver-gelatin prints from two series, Los Toros and Mountain Ranch, by photographer Michael Crouser. The new exhibit will run from April 18 to June 1. Our reception for Michael will take place on May 2, from 5:30 to 7:30. We hope you'll join us.

 

Corden|Potts Gallery is located at 49 Geary Street, Suite 410, in San Francisco. Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 am to 5:30 pm and until 7:30 pm on the first Thursday of the month.

 

Los Toros is a fifteen-year photographic exploration of the centuries-old, controversial spectacle of the bullfight, which eventually became an award-winning book from Twin Palms Publishers, featuring an introduction by Nobel Prize winner and aficionado Mario Vargas Llosa.

 

In 1995, Michael returned from a summer in Spain with 300 rolls of exposed film. "I went into the darkroom and barely came out for the next year and a half. From the very beginning of my exposure to the bullfight I knew that I was seeing something ... unlike anything I had ever seen. It was heavy, serious, sad, spectacular, historic, cultural, provocative and deep." Over the course of the next fifteen years Michael photographed more than 150 bullfights in Spain, Mexico, South America and France in an effort to tell the story of the plaza de toros and the area around it

 

Speaking of his on-going project, Mountain Ranch, Michael says he realized that the disappearing world of cattle ranching in the mountains of Colorado was really the perfect subject for him. "Age old, traditional, difficult, rough, dangerous and dirty. This kind of ranching is a timeless bit of Americana."

 

Continuing to describe his Mountain Ranch project, Michael says, "Mine is not a project about the modern cowboy. I have decided to concentrate on the traditional elements; the things that will disappear with this way of life--the clothing, working from horseback, branding with hot irons, etc. I have also made an effort to include the landscape, which frames these people's lives, for it's often what differentiates their chores and their movements from the ranchers in other regions. The landscape is also what may be the downfall of this type of life, for as the land becomes prohibitively more valuable and more practical for development than for grazing, small family ranches will disappear." 

 

Michael's first monograph, Los Toros, won first prize in the category of Fine Art Book at the 2008 International Photography Awards. His second book, Dog Run, was named one of the top ten photography books of the year by Photo District News, Communication Arts and the International Photography Awards. In 2012 Leica Gallery in New York presented the exhibition Michael Crouser: A Mid-Career Retrospective featuring sixty prints from four distinct series, spanning 25 years. Michael's work can be found in the permanent collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. He has taught at New York's International Center of Photography, The Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and The Mpls Photo Center in Minneapolis. He currently divides his time between Brooklyn and his hometown of Minneapolis.

 

Come catch Michael Crouser's wonderful series Los Toros and Mountain Ranch at Corden|Potts.  

 

Liz and Jan 

 


  
     © Michael Crouser 
 
 

Moving Cows from the series Mountain Ranch � Michael Crouser

 

 

 

Contact Information:
phone: 415-781-0110
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