Sergio Purtell

• Stanley Barker 2020
  
• Hardback, 1st edition
  
• New
  

Every summer from the late 1970s through the mid ’80s SERGIO PURTELL would buy an inexpensive roundtrip ticket from New York to London, and from there get a Eurail pass. Traveling cheaply, he could move freely around Europe.

Wandering made sense to Purtell. At the age of 18 he fled an imminent dictatorship in Chile. He fell in love with photography, and his art history classes convinced him that he needed to see Europe. When he got there, he was reminded of his life in Santiago: the mannerisms, the customs, the architecture, the relaxed attitude towards life, the mornings in cafes, and afternoons lounging by the cool of a fountain, and finishing the day at the local bar with a glass of wine.

“A young man sets out to find his Love. As he traverses the European continent, he learns to forget the past, live in the present, and appreciate the journey. How does one fall in love? By being present, an act that is unavoidable when making pictures in the world. In photography, love is not blind—although many things can, deceptively, go unnoticed: a small gesture, the radiance of a glance, the texture of skin, the shape of a neck, a flitting blush, downcast eyes, a modest grace. Love can be a connection to something greater than ourselves, or the thing that shows us who we are. It requires relentless dedication. The fountains merge with the river and rivers with the ocean and the waves embrace each other.” - Sergio Purtell

During languid summers around forty years ago (it’s the era of Madonna and Eric Fischl), a young Sergio Purtell crisscrossed Europe searching for scenes where marble mixes with skin. Passing through a landscape of fountains and classical piazzas (and on occasion dropping in on a café), Sergio made frames full of sensuous gestures and complex relationships. With the publication of his first book, the brilliant sun that Sergio captured in silver so long ago can be seen again. - Mark Steinmetz

Sealed.

• Stanley Barker 2024
• Hardback, 1st edition, 184p
• New 

Sergio Purtell arrived in the USA in the early 1970s, having fled an imminent dictatorship in Chile, by General Augusto Pinochet. Here he glimpsed the American dream, and sought to unravel the nations mysteries as an outsider who had witnessed the capriciousness of power and the tenacity of the displaced.

Made between 1977 and the early-90s Sergio Purtell’s American photographs are imprints of life in a country fixated on its duelling myths of emancipation and conquest. From collective exuberance to rural serenity, Purtell’s images of fairs, parades and a life lived outside, display moments both commonplace and distinct. They search out under-swells of feelings that fleck public space with intimacy and interaction. They register the human tenderness that flows from rare moments of rest.

"The first thing I noticed was the lack of walls.  In Santiago, Chile, the houses were closed off and private. In Hamilton, Ohio–where I arrived in 1972 as a 17-year-old exchange student—the houses were separated by white picket fences. They were easy to leap over and neighbours were friendly. At home in Chile, I knew about America by its TV shows and films, its music and freedom and possibility. The prim white fences looked the part, a display of affluence within reach. But beyond them, I also glimpsed a sprawling, enigmatic landscape where the American dream awoke to reality. 

“Today, this country is not the same place I arrived in. A wall is being constructed along the southern border. As I made these pictures, a wall was coming down in East Berlin. Moral Minority is a meditation on this collapse of conscience. To assemble the fragments, it looks to the narratives of those pushed to the periphery, and to those who can testify to the intricate predicament between right and wrong.”