Shane Lavalette: One Sun, One Shadow

Shane Lavalette: One Sun, One Shadow by Aline SmithsonNovember 3, 2016

©Shane Lavalette, from One Sun, One Shadow

They are quiet pictures that build to a boisterous whole. They speak from the endlessly renewed place of the photographic expeditioner who loves the world and knows it’s a well that never runs dry.— Tim Davis

Some years ago, photographic artist, Shane Lavalette was commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta to create a new series of photographs for their 2012 exhibition, Picturing the South. Shane continued his focus on the South capturing a slowed-down survey through land and place weighted with history and beauty. There is a quiet elegance to his photographs, images that savor the afternoon light and a richness that reflects a deep seeing. The result of his observations is a new monograph, One Sun, One Shadow.

Printed Matter in New York City will be hosting a book launch/signing tomorrow, November 4th from 6-8pm. The book can also be pre-ordered here.

Native to the Northeast, it was primarily through traditional music — the sounds of old time, blues, and gospel — that Lavalette had formed a relationship with the South. With that in mind, the region’s rich musical history became the natural entry point for this project and the resulting photographs. Moved by the themes and stories past down in songs, Lavalette let the music itself carry the pictures. One Sun, One Shadow includes a text by artist and poet Tim Davis.

ON PRESS: One Sun, One Shadow by Shane Lavalette from Lavalette on Vimeo.

Shane recently had an exhibition of One Sun, One Shadow at the Robert Morat Galerie in Hamburg, Germany and has upcoming shows at Burlington City Arts (BCA) in Burlington, VT from January 20 – April 15, 2017 (in conjunction with this exhibition there will be a music performance by Glenn Jones, on March 10, 2017), at the Kaunas Photography Gallery, in Kaunas, Lithuania, January 26 – February 26, 2017, and at the Le Château d’Eau in Toulouse, France in 2017. He has also been commissioned to create a new body of work in Switzerland through an exciting collaboration with the Fotostiftung Schweiz, Musée de l’Élysée, and Swiss Tourism.

Shane Lavalette is an American photographer, an independent publisher and editor, and the director of Light Work. He holds a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Lavalette’s photographs have been exhibited widely, including at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Aperture Foundation, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, the Recontres d’Arles, and the Musée de l’Elysée; and are additionally contained within numerous private and public collections. In 2016, Lavalette published his first monograph, One Sun, One Shadow, and a solo exhibition of the same title was held at Robert Morat Galerie in Hamburg, Germany. Lavalette’s projects have been featured by the New York Times, TIME, NPR, CNN, the Telegraph, Foam Magazine, and Hotshoe, among others; and his editorial work has accompanied stories in various publications, including the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Wire, Wallpaper*, Monocle, and the Guardian.