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EDWYNN HOUK GALLERY PRESENTS ANDREA MODICA OPENING JAN. 15

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NEW YORK CITY — Edwynn Houk Gallery will present the first exhibition of more than 20 new photographs from Andrea Modica’s latest series: “Fountain, Colorado” January 15–February 16. A reception for the artist will take place Thursday, January 24, from 6 to 8 pm.

For more than nine years, Modica has been documenting the lives of the Baker children, heirs to a family-run slaughterhouse in the plains of central Colorado. Modica, long renowned for her virtuosity in printing 8-by-10-inch platinum/palladium prints, will exhibit large-scale works for the first time in her career. The exhibition will coincide with the forthcoming publications of Fountain by Stinehour Editions, 2008, the artist’s seventh monograph.

After moving to Colorado in the late 1990s, Modica became interested in the world of the slaughterhouse, and the professional and personal lives of those who make the slaughterhouse their livelihood. Modica’s artistic curiosity was initially met with resistance, as several slaughterhouse suspected photographers to be critical of their trade. Word of mouth, however, led the artist to the Bakers, a family that runs their own business in Fountain, Colo.

The Bakers permitted Modica to enter their family sphere, producing a sensitive collection of photographs that yield the same intimacy expressed in previous projects such as “Treadwell” and “Barbara.”

At once unsettling and beautiful, Modica’s photographs record the artist’s gradual immersion into the Baker family. Exterior views of the slaughterhouse give way to more private photographs taken in the family basement. Illuminated by the soft glow of a single bulb dangling from the basement ceiling, these photographs exude a quiet heaviness, connecting them to more explicit images of death found throughout the series. In this context, still life scenes become particularly somber, and even a mundane object like a spoon carries a new and latent danger.

The gallery is at 745 Fifth Avenue. For information, www.houkgallery.com or 212-750-7070.