Target, 2008 pigmented ink print 11x14 ed. of 15, 40x50 ed. of 7
Toys R Us, 2009 pigmented ink print 11x14 ed. of 15, 40x50 ed. of 7
Rolling Acres Mall, 2008, pigmented ink print 11x14 ed. of 15, 40x50 ed. of 7
Hope you can join me this evening or that you get a chance to see the show that opens tonight. My 2nd solo show in New York presents work from Thrift and work in progress from Dark Stores, Ghostboxes and Dead Malls.
There are a lot of firsts here. Some of the first showings of this new work, some of my first inkjet prints and some smaller prints at 11x14". Working with the 8x10 for the last year I came to understand that the fidelity of that camera is so large that when looking at a contact print or slightly larger the reading of the image is so fundamentally unique. In contrast to the large prints which ask the view to subsume themselves into the virtual space. I like both, so many of these new pictures are available in both sizes. With making pictures whose subject is economic we decided to make these smaller prints more affordable so to encourage viewing them in groups. The conversation just gets much more engaging in series.
See you there!
"In contrast to the neatly stacked shelves and the K-Marts full of little girls plastic fantasies in his previous exhibition, in this show Ulrich reveals the chaotic ass-end of capitalism, the thrift shops "last-stop repositories," Julie Saul calls them, and consumerism’s tombstones of defunct, ghost-box stores, devoid of fantasy, glamour, and customers. ...Historically speaking, the work is far more ambitious than a mere catalogue of catastrophe. Remarks Saul, “Ulrich chronicles a profoundly seismic shift within society and implicitly asks the question, where do we go from here?....We can't say he didn't warn us, but given the toxic fallout from recent excesses of consumer capitalism, this may be the opposite of disaster gazing. Ulrichs prescient image captures not merely the end of an era but the beginning of a new one, based on a realistic relationship to the things we make."
Opens May 28 6 - 8pm
May 28 - July 3, 2009
535 West 22 Street
New York, NY 10011
Headed off on the road to NY for my opening and then afterwards to Worcester, MA for photographing and dinner with 
