Mar 25 2008

Mark your calendars: Sze Tsung Leong's newest show of photographs is being featured at Yossi Milo's Gallery in New York City April 3rd through May 17th . Entitled simply "Horizons", the collection just might be his best so far - the flurry of different horizons leaves you not only breathless but eager to walk into the unknown.

If anyone ever questioned that photography was art, this show should erase all doubts. The subtle images of skylines ranging from cityscapes to seascapes are stunningly powerful and beautiful. Nearly neo-impressionist, these pictures capture the mystery that haunts us of what is on the other side. With calculated perfection, Sze Tsung draws us into his photography and begs us to travel with him into an endless world with no boundaries. Take this amazing piece of countryside and examine your own desire to know what lies just beyond that horizon. How far can one walk in this beauty before encountering the calm or chaos that lies ahead?

Avebury_lll_2002_2 

Sze Tsung Leong express his in own words what horizons mean to him:

"Understood with this expanded capacity, the horizon forms a boundary separating the inside from the outside, the seen from the unseen, the known from the unknown, and the familiar from the foreign. Any boundary automatically creates a relationship between what is included inside and what is left outside, making the outside just as important as the inside in knowing and understanding the inside itself. Intelligibility is just as much a question of establishing “this is not” as it is of determining “this is.” National borders are just as much about defining an idea of what “we are not” as they are about delineating what “we are.” A horizon is just as much about what we cannot see beyond it as it is about what we can see in front of it. In other words, the horizon always points to what is outside."

His work doesn't always create mystery or journeys into the unknown. This photograph taken on the Yangtze River captures not only the beauty of a solitary life but the extreme loneliness of it. The river dweller almost seems to float above the water and you feel as though you are intruding simply by viewing the picture.

Yangtze_river_1_2002

Again, Sze Tsung says it best when he states:

"To drift towards the horizon implies approaching the outside, the unseen, the unknown, the foreign. Yet if the horizon is always the farthest visible point, the widest limit of knowledge, then any approach to the horizon will be accompanied and preceded by the range of familiarity that delineates the horizon in the first place. The familiar, to some degree or another, is always immanent in the foreign, acting as a form of navigation, a compass by which the outside can become understandable and legible."

This will be an extraordinary show and well worth a trip to see it. Yossi Milo continues to emerge as one of the premiere photography galleries in the country. Milo has done great work in making sure that the photograph, like the canvas, can achieve pure art. His gallery is located at 525 West 25th Street in New York City.