Conversations with Dan McNulty in Jersey City: The Loews Theater ©Andrew Blaize Bovasso
Andrew Blaize Bovasso was selected for the juried exhibition “Nostalgia” at the PhotoPlace Gallery in Vermont. The selected photograph above is from the series “Conversations with Dan McNulty.” (McNulty photographed Jersey City from 1940-1960.) More than just a re-photographic survey, Bovasso breathes life into the archive to explore both historical and personal connections. Bovasso was born and grew up in Jersey City. At the age of fifteen, his father died and Bovasso turned to photography as a way to connect with his father posthumously and to explore the passage of time and fleeting moments photographically. About this body of work, Bovasso says, “[t]hrough [McNulty's] images alone I traveled throughout Jersey City to rephotograph his work, along my way I noted that this concept was a lot like having a ‘conversation’ with him, not only in the physical representation of the triptych, but in rephotographing in the first place. Finding the places and using the camera’s frame to investigate and determine the accurate place where he must have stood in order to obtain his images was very spiritual, and I do truly believe that his presence was with me… It is in this conversation that I can tell him that his photographs are not dead; they are very much living documents, and the conversation between him, myself, or anyone, can continue forever… So you see, the project is a metaphor for my relationship with my father, an earthly way to reach out into the unknown and take a hold of something for a few seconds before it’s gone.”
©Andrew Blaize Bovasso
©Andrew Blaize Bovasso
©Andrew Blaize Bovasso
©Andrew Blaize Bovasso
The book “Conversations with Dan McNulty in Jersey City” is available through the Blurb bookstore and includes the full collection of over fifty triptychs from this series.
Bovasso has another body of work called “Conversations with Family at Home” that explores some of the same themes. Through re-filming Bovasso creates haunting pieces of past presence and memory. Watch one here. Andrew Bovasso has a BFA from MICA. His blogspot is http://bovasso.blogspot.com/.