Bill Gaskins: The Cadillac Chronicles

[Bruce Nunnally]

Bill Gaskins is a photographic artist, essayist, author, and lecturer at the Parsons School of Design in New York. He has completed a photographic essay and talk about the black Cadillac experience entitled "The Cadillac Chronicles". Apparently it is a lecture and photographic review, so if you have an opportunity to attend a presentation in your vicinity please do.

background info:

In June of 2006, as a recipient of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Artists & Communities Grant, Bill Gaskins assumed the role of artist-in-residence in the city of Newark. Over several months, selected members of two prominent motor clubs, Newark’s Brick City GM Crew, and the Nostalgic Automobile Society of Montclair became the subjects of his portraits. Months of research, production, and post-production activity have led to an important body of work from Bill Gaskins that is characteristic of his image making agenda—offering viewers more than meets the eye.

To this end, The Cadillac Chronicles is more than photographs of men with their cars. Like most of his work, it is an eloquently nuanced view of the numerous complexities and contradictions of American life through the lives of African Americans—while exploring technical, conceptual, and formal topics in photography that test and engage the viewer—and the artist himself.

In this public talk with the Rutgers-Newark community, Bill Gaskins will present digital projections of the photographs he produced, discuss the personal, cultural, aesthetic and conceptual foundation of his project, share accounts of his experiences over the course of the residency and introduce the men he collaborated with through their portraits and stories.

Since the author has previous published works perhaps this will also become a book eventually.