Photographs that reach for the sky.
Mitchell Funk's epic series of color photographs of the Chrysler Building embodies the spirit of visionaries Walter Chrysler and Architect William Van Alen. Like their daring creation, the Chrysler Building, Funk’s images of it go above and beyond the ordinary to become avant-garde. They take chances and push the boundaries of color photography. They endow the commonplace with energy and life, exhibiting risk-taker innovation while avoiding visual cliches. They are dramatic. They are eye-catching.
With its imposing Art Deco silhouette and rich-in-detail facade, the Chrysler Building has fulfilled its creator’s intent of being a New York icon for 95 years. Photographer Mitchell Funk has been on a lifelong journey to document and interpret the icon's alluring beauty for half its lifespan. He has photographed it individually and as part of the Manhattan Skyline. This show, featuring over 100 color images, represents an extraordinary output of work spanning over half a century.
Over time, The Chrysler Building has not materially changed, but its surroundings have.
In 1974, the Manhattan skyline was mainly composed of smaller buildings, so the Chrysler Building's monumentality stood out. As time progressed, high-rise development obscured and enhanced the icon's visual presence. One sub-theme of the show is "Wherever you look, you see the Chrysler Building." Sometimes it dominates the composition, and at other times, the viewer needs to hunt to find it.
For Funk, “Great Art never goes out of style,” and the Chrysler Building continues to "in-spire" his creativity for a half-century. Funk has shot the soaring edifice in extreme light, snowstorms, blurs, multiple exposures, and candid close-ups of its iconic gleaming spire. A recurring theme in Funk's photos is that the Chrysler Building, always emanating from the spire's upward thrust, commands the viewer's attention, even if it's featured less prominently in an expansive skyline. To Funk, " the aesthetic energy emanating from the spire's upward thrust reinforces the positive dialog between man a nd nature." It may be easy to project human emotions onto inanimate objects, but Funk's photography of the Chrysler Building connects with one's empirical experience. Funk states, " All the images share the same sensibility of meticulous lighting and design, but they are all different in their look, with a myriad of techniques, architectural juxtapositions, dramatic angles, multiple exposures, hyper-lighting, blurs, zooms, big moons, and conceptual compositions. "
"Mitchell Funk Photographs the Chrysler Building for 50 Years " reinforces it as one of the most beloved icons in our visual vocabulary with its sky-piercing feeling of hope, innovation, and distinctiveness. It's also an opportunity to view Funk's artistic evolution and practice from 1974 to 2025. This epic exhibition will be on view from June 18, 2025, through December 31, 2025.
