20 / 20 / 200 is a special anniversary portfolio produced by Micamera for its 20th anniversary Read here
GUS POWELL (New York, 1974)
The Long Goodbye, 2018 (from Family Car Trouble)
This image is published in Family Car Trouble, Gus Powell’s third monograph.
With Family Car Trouble, Gus Powell plays with the form of the novel, both as material object and as narrative vehicle for expressing interior life. The work records and reckons with the arrival of children, the departure of a father, and the maintenance of a difficult 1992 Volvo 940 station wagon.
How many emotional nuances exist in the family microcosm? Gus Powell shows them all honestly, while Jimmy (the car and Powell’s alter ego) constantly needs maintenance. Powell stubbornly constantly repairs it.
Gus Powell himself is glimpsed only in one photograph, close to his daughter, but he is always present. He is the narrative voice of life happening. His love and care for his family (and also for his car) becomes a visceral journey into dynamics in which we all recognize ourselves, but which we are not always able to look at with the same honesty and gentleness.
We struggle with things we can control and those we cannot…in the end life goes on.
Gus Powell was born in New York City in 1974 and attended Oberlin College where he majored in comparative religion. In 2003 he was selected to be in PDNs 30 under 30 issue and also published his first monograph, The Company of Strangers (J&L Books) that took its inspiration from Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems. Powell’s work has been exhibited internationally, including solo shows at The Museum of The City of New York and at Spartanburg Art Museum in South Carolina, and group exhibitions at The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts Houston and FOAM, NL.
