Downtown, Los Angeles
Carter Seddon
Souvenir
Jenny'sFor his second solo exhibition at Jenny’s, Carter Seddon presents a new series of 13 silver gelatin prints. The photographs were made using 35mm film, framed identically and printed slightly larger than a standard postcard. The subject matter oscillates between the very photogenic, a cat for instance, and the less picturesque; a Midtown Manhattan street corner seen from a car. The title of the show, “Souvenir,” is the French word for remember, stemming from the Latin word subvenire meaning “occur to the mind.” It is also, in the present world, a cheap plastic object that stands in for an experience. As a container, the object evokes unique personal memories but also reflects received ideas about places and experiences. The titles of the individual works are broad enough to generate personal associations that are specific to each viewer. Conversely, like search terms, they bring to mind the countless other images of the same subjects that are already in circulation. The use of an outmoded medium, the silver gelatin print, softens this redundancy through its inefficiency; the amount of effort required to produce an image alters one’s relationship to it. Carter Seddon (b. 1986, San Francisco, CA) lives and works in New York. He completed his MFA at the University of California, Riverside in 2013. Solo exhibitions include The Middler, Brooklyn (2019) and Jenny’s, Los Angeles (2015). He has participated in group exhibitions at Jenny’s, London; Silberkuppe, Berlin; Jimmy Hoo, Brussels; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Phyllis Gill Gallery, Riverside; and Proof Gallery, Boston.