Upper Gallery Art Opening: “Rear Window: Photographs by Tom Zuk”

Tom Zuk has made photographic art from the rough materials of the urban cityscape outside his Hoboken apartment window. A wall of crumbling masonry, a clothesline with pulley, a patio, a street corner, a church with steeple, hi-rise apartment, just the sky filling the window from edge to edge — each scene is interpreted by a photographer steeped in all aspects of the medium, from the studied attention to light and shadow in shooting a still life or landscape to the split-second instincts of a street photographer.

Working within the self-imposed constraints of shooting from his apartment, Zuk didn’t set out with a particular objective, but he describes the resulting series as “a hybrid of the Romantic and Existential, recording the particular species of mankind’s solitude unique to dense, old cities.” The image used in the poster, for example, was inspired by the effect of the city at night, “painted with artificial lights that haphazardly––beautifully, to my eye––mix color temperatures, and serve up a chiaroscuro dreamscape that I find compelling.” The photograph is just one in a very varied tableau of Zuk’s corner of Hoboken. See the rest in the exhibit, “Rear Window: Photographs by Tom Zuk,” which opens Sunday, April 15, with an opening reception from 2 – 5 pm, and an artist’s talk at 4 pm. The exhibit remains on view through May 27.

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.