The Pool

Photographs by Karine Laval

21 March to 6 May 2006

Online gallery

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Crane Kalman Brighton is pleased to announce the first solo show in the UK of photographer Karine Laval.

The exhibition will feature Laval's body of work, The Pool, which documents a series of out-door swimming pools and lidos around Europe. The images are spontaneous, playful and filled with colour and life.

Unusual angles and odd cropping add to the humorous and quirky nature of the images – people caught flying through the air as they hurl themselves into the water; a mass of legs queuing to climb the high diving board. All the photographs reflect the brightness and vivid colour of high summer Ð the bleached whiteness of a city centre pool in Barcelona; the azure blue sea at a lido in Cascais, Portugal.

A native of France, Laval has been based in New York since 1997 alternating her time between the US and Europe working on assignments and personal projects. Portraits and photo essays have appeared in magazines and publications including the book Here Is New York, published by Scalo after September 11, 2001.

Her work has also been featured in a wide variety of magazines including The Village Voice, The New Yorker, Elle, Fabric, Dazed & Confused and Harper's. Her work has also been widely exhibited in Europe and the US, including a recent solo show at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery in New York in 2005.

Laval was a recipient of the Peter Reed Foundation Grant in 2005 and was selected as one of PDN Magazine's Top 30 Photographers of 2005. Her work has been acquired by the Citibank Collection (New York), the Henry Buhl Collection (New York) and was exhibited as part of the Buhl Foundation Collection at the Guggenheim Museum in 2004, Collection Corbiere (Paris) and the Contemporanea Collection (Rio de Janeiro).

The exhibition will run from 21st March to 6th May. Crane Kalman Brighton is located at 38 Kensington Gardens, Brighton BN1 4AL. For any further information, please contact Richard Kalman on 07775 927143 or visit www.cranekalmanbrighton.com.

Exhibition Courtesy of the Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York.

For any further information or imagery, please contact Richard Kalman on 01273 697096 or richard.kalman@cranekalmanbrighton.com.

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