(UN)THINKABLE
A solo exhibition of photographs by Phillip Buehler
Opening Reception: Friday, September 8th, 7:00-9:00 pm
Wed-Sun 1-6 pm and by appointment
VISIT OUR WEBSITE: https://www.frontroomles.com/
OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE: https://www.frontroomles.com/unthinkablepr
Front Room Gallery is proud to present “(un)thinkable,” the
culmination of 25 years of Phillip Buehler’s work photographing remnants of the
Cold War throughout the United States and Europe. Buehler has visited NATO
airbases, Cape Canaveral, the Airplane Graveyard, missile bunkers and silos
(even within New York City’s borders) among many other sites that are historic,
and yet hidden, forbidden, and forgotten. For anyone growing up during the Cold War the sense of dread of
the world’s annihilation was all to concrete. It was evidenced in films like
“Dr. Strangelove” and “The Day After.” Everyone knew the U.S. had enough
nuclear weapons to destroy the world 5 times over, and assumed something
similar about the Russians. For those not old enough to remember this built in
fear, don’t worry (worry) it is reawakening. We don’t need another Cuban
Missile Crisis to push us to the brink, the renewed tension with the Russians,
and now North Korea’s recent entry in the the nuclear weapons club is more than
enough to unnerve anyone who is watching these conflicts unfold. Phillip
Buehler is watching closely. Through this comprehensive series Buehler’s photos show
many aspects of this non-war war. In Buehler’s aerial photographs from a
military airplane storage yard in Arizona the repetion of the same model of
bomber aircraft are so abstractly pattern-based that the overall effect begings
to feel like a Middle Eastern tapastry. And in Buehler’s image from
inside a Nike Missile bunker in the Rockaways (part of New York City’s old
nuclear defense network) a vast graffiti covered concrete and steel structure
one can see where the roof opens up to lift and fire a nuclear missile. Of
couse this exhibition would not be complete without his photo of the iconic
“Fallout Shelter” signs, still visible at public schools and libraries all over
the country. The practical nature of these leftover signs could send a chill
down the spine of anyone who thinks about it for very long. Phil Buehler’s interest in modern Ruins started in 1973 when he
rowed out to then abandoned Ellis Island and he has continued to document 20th
-Century ruins around the world seeking to rescue the past one step ahead
of the wrecking ball. Buehler practiced “duck and cover” drills in grammar school
- the image below is of the fallout shelter sign still on that school.”His
recent book, “Woody Guthrie’s Wardy Forty,” won numerous awards and documents
the singer/songwriter/activist’s life at Greystone Park Psychiatric through an
intricate juxtaposition of photographs of the now-abandoned hospital buildings,
Guthrie’s writings, medical records and interviews with close friends and
family.
