Weekend Portfolio: Caleb Stein - Down on the Hudson
Images in order of appearance: Sherika and Sanjay; Matthew, Jackson, and Oden Floating at Watering Hole; Three Boys; Michael & His Friend Embracing; Braily; Ramon; Boys with Dog and Ball; Sanjay; Skyler and Malikai; TaeShawn; Torso & Legs; Bode and Owen Wrestling Watering Hole 3; Bode and Owen Wrestling; Leo, Liza, Lily, Willa; Emma; Shamus in Embryo Pose.
Photographs by Caleb Stein
Photo Editing and Statement by Ari Adams
About the Images: Caleb Stein’s Down by the Hudson captures the boundary breaking and eden-like qualities of Poughkeepsie, New York’s Hudson River. During a time of heightened political tensions and after the election of Donald Trump, Stein found that the walls so many citizens had built amongst themselves simply disappeared when they stepped foot in the watering holes that the Hudson provided them. In Poughkeepsie, a town heavily affected by post-industrial layoffs and intensely divided among political lines, the Hudson river acts as a safe haven for families and friends from all backgrounds, where the outside world seemingly doesn’t exist. Through Stein’s intimate portraiture, which capture moments of both quiet and raucousness, he highlights the healing qualities of nature on the modern American psyche. The images make it clear that the Hudson has provided moments of respite to the people living on it for generation after generation and will continue to do so far into the future. The series functions as Stein’s ode to Poughkeepsie but also, seemingly, to small town America itself.
All of the images from this series can be acquired through ROSEGALLERY in Los Angeles. Furthermore, his photographs Michael Embracing His Friend and Sanjay & Sherika were acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Huston, earlier this month.
About the Photographer: Caleb Stein (b. 1994, London) graduated from Vassar College in 2017 with a degree in history of art. His work explores the fragility of memory through an embrace of community and the dynamic, energetic interactions that occur within it. Questions surrounding mythology and narrative as they relate to the United States and the international influence it exerts sit at the core of much of Stein’s work, as he grapples with his relationship to the country that has become his adopted home. Stein’s work embraces the lyrical potential of photography; his work often contains a tension between the poetic and the emotionally confrontational.
