Photo Exhibit “The It Click” @ Butter Gallery

The It Click
Butter Gallery Gets Giddy with Imagery
by John Hood

This Saturday night, Wynwood’s wily Butter Gallery will be turning over its front room to a ragtag gang of with-it photogs that seem intent on capturing every shade of the night there is – real or imagined. The photogs – Rudy Duboue, Frankie Galland, Jake Katel, Charis Kirchhemer, Diana Larrea and Pamela Wasabi – are six of the most visible digital visualists working the scene. And though each is tied to the geography of the Miami afterdark; each also comes off with a style and a grace wholly their own.

Take Duboue, whose sly and subtle snaps would undoubtedly be revered by French filmmaker Eric Roehmer, a man who had a similar take on what makes an image most alluring. (Hint: it’s not the explicit.) Or Frankie Galland, who’s as comfortable in a half-pipe as he is in a studio, and whose rapid fire shootings fittingly capture a certain segment of MIA streetlife. Take Jake Katel, whose photos can frequently be found in Miami New Times, and who is forever on the hunt for the next now thing. Or Charis Kirchheimer, a charter member of the Overthrow Army, who was one of the key ingredients in those infamous Black Sunday murder movies, and whose Dirty Laundry most recently was strung up at Cafeina, where all and sundry basked in the glow of its inner know. Or take Diana Larrea. The Peruvian-sprung lenschick goes one further than simple snapping, and adds a hefty dash of concept to all that she chronicles. Then there’s Pamela Wasabi, leader of her own Fashion Kult. Wasabi is a wild child of the night, and she herself has probably been captured in camera as much as anyone in town. But it will be her capturings – instant, sharp and telling – which will take their rightful place in our chronology.

But the vivid images of The It Click are only half of what’s in store this week at Butter, for in room number two gallerist Paco de la Torre will be unveiling Sean Desmond’s The Tenderloin Project. Desmond, a well-noted San Francisco-based lensman, has for some time had his sights set on his town’s most infamous neighborhood. And the moments he’s caught in his camera – both still and moving – show a side of Fog City few have chosen to see, let alone acknowledge. But this isn’t so much an exhibition in blight as it is celebration of life. And that’s why Desmond has subtitled his ongoing effort “the art of living in the Tenderloin.”

In less than a year, Butter Gallery has staked a place in the ‘hood known as Wynwood by featuring some of the most chattered-about artists in this or any town. On Saturday night that new and enduring tradition will continue, with a double-shot show that’s set to knock us all into wow. You have been tipped off.

The It Click and The Tenderloin Project both open on August 14 and run through September 10 at Butter Gallery 2303 NW 2^nd Avenue Miami 305.303.6254