Simone Kappeler’s ‘Through America’ on view in NYC

Simone Kappeler: ‘Through America’

NEW YORK – De Buck Gallery and Galerie Esther Woerdehoff are presenting Swiss photographer Simone Kappeler’s “Through America” series in the De Buck Gallery viewing room. The exhibition will be on view through April 15, with a reception on April 9 from 6-8 p.m., which the artist is scheduled to attend.

“Through America” is the photographic summary of a road trip that a young Simone Kappeler took through the United States in 1981. Kappeler’s spontaneous images of automobiles, both occupied and abandoned in driveways, or groups of people enjoying the small pleasures of life – like fast-food or wading in a pool, embody a wistful Americana. Kappeler’s journey is reminiscent of one taken by fellow Swiss native Robert Frank in the early 1950s, resulting in the influential photography book The Americans. For viewers familiar with this earlier history, the contrast between Kappeler’s work and Frank’s is striking, and clearly illustrates the differences between the photographers and the changes in American society in the intervening 30 years. Both compelling and quaint, the series as a whole seems to represent a timeless nostalgia, and presented more than 30 years after they were first taken, tells a story of a simpler time. Through America captures a young woman’s impressions of an adventure through the American society of the 1980s, and looking back across decades, provides viewers with a sense of both who the artist and what the country were at the time of her travels.

Simone Kappeler was born in Frauenfeld, Switzerland in 1952, and studied photography, German language and art history at Zurich University. She has been exhibiting her work in Europe since the late 1970s, and is currently represented by Esther Woerdehoff in Paris. Through America at De Buck Gallery marks Kappeler’s debut solo exhibition in New York. She currently lives and works in Frauenfeld, Switzerland.

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Simone Kappeler: ‘Through America’