15/3/2013
Mike Brodie
M+B, Los Angeles
A Period of Juvenile Prosperity. Brodie's tableau repurposes symbols of decline into a seemingly alluring form of ad hoc glamour and freedom tinged with punk rock idealism.
M+B is proud to present Mike Brodie’s highly anticipated second solo exhibition, A
Period of Juvenile Prosperity. The exhibition of thirty new color photographs will
be Brodie’s first solo exhibition in six years and opens in conjunction with the
publication of Brodie’s first monograph bearing the same name, published by Twin
Palms. The exhibition will be shown simultaneously in New York at Yossi Milo Gallery
and run at M+B in Los Angeles from March 16 through May 11, 2013, with an opening
reception and book signing on Saturday, March 16 from 6 to 8 pm.
For three intense and prolific years, Brodie crisscrossed the states hopping trains,
hitchhiking and employing whatever freely available means to fuel his burning lust
for movement. The resulting photographs weave a telling photo narrative relatable to
Kerouac’s On The Road, capturing the raw spirit of adventure and unbridled freedom
Brodie and his friends sought and lived. A natural, Brodie’s camera functioned as an
extension of himself, an obsession. There was no thought-out intention to document
or record, the resulting images just happened after Brodie found a Polaroid SX-70 on
the backseat of a friend’s car. Soulfully and intimately depicted against a constant
backdrop of movement are savages “riding suicide,” maps in filthy hands, tender
moments of slumber and ruddy faces framed by wind-whipped hair eagerly leaning into
the next adventure. Brodie’s tightly knit traveling community was bound by movement,
ravenous for life’s varied experiences and interactions and fueled by an intense
curiosity to see, to feel, to meet something and someone beyond the towns in which
they had been raised. Living outside of society’s norms, this highly creative group
lived neither on nor off, but parallel to the beaten path, gleaning society’s
detritus along the way to support their chosen version of the American Dream.
The photographs also document a period of transition in Brodie’s life—just after
puberty and just before manhood—when hitchhiking for the thrill of the open road,
catching rides on freight trains bound for another nowhere town, eating the food
left to rot by others and drinking the cheapest alcohol that crosses your lips seems
like a perfectly logical and honest way to spend your days. Brodie’s tableau
repurposes symbols of decline—trains, Polariods, 35mm film, thrift store
clothes—into a seemingly alluring form of ad hoc glamour and freedom tinged with
punk rock idealism. The characters drift through post-industrial America. The
result: a balance of comeliness and crustiness, filth and beauty, all finely
measured by movement, a desire to move on and, at some point, move out of the
picture. Although Brodie was never trained, his photographs are an honest and
sincere look at the practice of photography that can only come from historical
unawareness of the medium. Unknowingly, Brodie’s images follow in the footsteps of
photographers like Robert Frank, William Eggleston, Walker Evans and Nan Goldin.
Born in 1985, Brodie was raised between Phoenix and Pensacola along with his younger
brother, Jake, by a single working mother. Perhaps one might assume Brodie had
little to lose when he hopped his first train at seventeen, but Brodie wasn’t
escaping, he was searching. Since that first train ride, Brodie has ridden over
50,000 miles through forty-six states, documenting the people and places he
encountered along the way. From 2004 to 2006, Brodie shot exclusively on SX-70
Time-Zero film, earning him the moniker the Polaroid Kidd: a name he would tag on
boxcars and walls. When Time-Zero film was discontinued, Brodie moved from these
carefully framed gems to more candid moments shooting with a 1980 Nikon F3 with 35mm
film from 2006 to 2009. The immediacy of the photographic medium combined with
Brodie’s innocence of spirit and raw approach provides a distinct style and
authentic voice within the lexicon of photographic history that is so uniquely his
own, while simultaneously characteristically American.
Mike Brodie won the Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers in 2007 and has
been included in exhibitions at the DeCordova Museum (Lincoln, MA) and the Sonoma
State University Art Gallery (Sonoma, CA). Brodie’s work is held in the permanent
collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Berkeley Museum of
Art. Brodie’s first exhibition in 2006 at M+B garnered critical attention, and his
work went on to be reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, American PHOTO,
pdn and others. One never to gravitate towards attention, as soon as Brodie began
gaining fame for his images, he retreated into obscurity, focusing his obsession on
becoming a diesel mechanic: a job that he currently pursues in Oakland with the same
passion he approached to image-making.
For further information, please contact Alexandra Wetzel at (310) 550-0050,
alexandra@mbart.com or visit our website at www.mbart.com.
Artist's Opening Reception and Book Signing Saturday, March 16, 2013 from 6 - 8 pm
M+B
612 North Almont Drive - Los Angeles
Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm, and by appointment
Free admission