"Next Stop Atlantic" exhibition of photographs by Stephen Mallon September 10, 2010

Next Stop Atlantic
photographs by Stephen Mallon
September 10th—October 3rd, 2010
Reception: Friday, September 10th, 7-9pm
Viewing hours: Fri-Sun 1-6 and by appt.

The Front Room gallery is proud to present “Next Stop
Atlantic,” an exhibition of photographs by Stephen Mallon opening September 10th from 7-9pm.

In his second solo exhibition at the gallery Mallon presents
a stunning series of photographs, which capture
the retirement of hundreds of New York City Subway
cars to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

In a bold move, the NYC Transit authority joined the artificial
reef building program off the East Coast of the US
in 2000 and sent stripped and decontaminated subway
cars off on barges to be dropped into the Ocean in order
to build refuge for many species of fish and crustaceans
which would colonize the structures.

Mallon traces the progress of the train cars on their way
towards their last voyage, majestic waves approach the
viewer in these large scale photographs as they too are
transported out to sea to behold the lifting and transfer
of these massive machines. One photograph hauntingly
depicts elements of nature creeping into their barren
hulls, drifts of snow lines the walkways, a glimpse of
sunshine streams through their removed doors as they
wait in stacks to be carted off to sink to the dark depths
of the ocean floor.

Mallon’s photographs elicit both the sadness and the
beauty of cascading water overtaking these iconic figures
of New York transit as they sink beneath the surface
of the water; surges and sprays are caught in time.
Stephen Mallon dedicated the last three years to following
this endeavor, chronicling the last phase of NYC
Transit’s involvement in this program. The photographs
that are presented in this exhibition capture the grandiosity
of this effort; the weight of these 18-ton train cars
can be felt as they are ferried off and plunged into the
water.

These newly released photographs are from Mallon’s
continuing series; “American Reclamation” which
chronicles and examines recycling processes in the U.S.
This series holds optimism in the innovation of salvaging
techniques, showing the possible gains that can be
made as industrial waste is revivified. In “Next Stop Atlantic”
Mallon determinedly tracks the final stage of the
lives of these, once indispensable modes of transit for
passengers on the New York subway lines, canonizing
them in New York history.

Most recently, Mallon gained much acclaim with his
striking “Brace for Impact: The Salvage of Flight 1549,”
a series of photographs documenting the salvaging
of the US Airway flight that, amazingly, airline captain
Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger had managed to safely
emergency-land in the Hudson River in on January 15,
2009. The images Mallon produced during the two-week
effort by maritime contractor Weeks Marine have since
been exhibited in New York and featured in numerous
publications and media including: New York magazine,
Vanity Fair, NBC, CBS, Resource Magazine and Wired.
In the summer of 2010, “Brace for Impact: The Salvage
of Flight 1549” will be exhibited at the University of the
Arts in Philadelphia.