Monya Rowe Gallery is very pleased to announce the first New York solo exhibition by

Joe Pflieger titled Photographs.

Pflieger presents a series of photographs mostly taken in museums in cities such as St. Petersburg, Venice, Milan, Copenhagen and New York depicting historically accurate reconstructions of interiors. The surface, a vital part of the work itself, of each photograph is approached with a strong kinship to painting and organically captured, without the aid of computer manipulation, with a digital camera.                    

The art –form of photography arrived at a point in the history of European painting when Romanticism was widely admired. Pflieger’s photographs delicately reference this period of art history. Commanding a dialogue with painting, each carefully framed photograph deliberately captures a rich painterly-like texture, and is often misconstrued for a painting. The subject matter - period rooms - allows Pflieger to combine minimalism, modernism and romanticism while subversively touching upon themes of class and upward mobility. The composition and dark hues suggest a quiet, reflective and mysterious tone, at times even haunting.

Formally rigorous and conceptually intuitive, Pflieger’s photographs are a measured examination of light and repetition. Images extend beyond the frame of the photograph by employing the space around mirrors, windows and doors. These reoccurring themes are used to disorient the pictorial space, while adding depth and conceptual curiosity.  At times, space and objects within the frame are seemingly mirrored and multiplied, at once capturing a baroque, yet ostensibly pared down essence. As a group of photographs each image is bound together through repeated compositions and anchored by a vertical framing. In St. Petersburg Gold (2009) the objects - a mirror and a column - are represented in pairs; a deliberate decision used to dramatically alter our perception while following a formal code and inviting a discourse with sculpture and architecture.

Joe Pflieger received a MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois and a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. His work has recently been exhibited at Light and Sie, Dallas, Texas and Monya Rowe Gallery. Pflieger lives and works in Princeton, New Jersey.