Alexandra's Garden by Shonna Valeska
A trained ballerina, Shonna Valeska went from the stage to the photographer’s studio, apprenticing with Richard Avedon. She was able to combine her love of the ballet and the making of images in her book, Balanchine’s Ballerinas:Conversations with the Muses (Simon and Schuster), including portraits of 30 of Balanchine’s greatest dancers. In 2002, Shonna became intrigued with the “Daffodil Project,” a Bloomberg initiative to restore beauty to New York City, finding in the flowers birth and rebirth; poetry and ballet; and color beyond the extraordinary. It was at a studio showing of these photographs that Robert Rosenkranz, a patron of the arts and friend of LHR, enthusiastically commissioned Shonna to photograph the magnificent garden of his wife Alexandra here in East Hampton. The exhibition will consist of 21x31” photographs floated from the sky by invisible wire, as if suspended in air. One of Jack Larsen’s favorites, the Jack in the Pulpit, is iridescent and almost otherworldly. A title taken from the ballet, “La Sylphide,” is a formal dogwood shot head-on that closely resembles the dance formation. A peony is shot from the inside. Special hybrid lilies, created by Rainbow Daylilly Garden in Springs, are also stars of the show. –Rebecca Cooper This exhibition is generously supported by Alexandra Munroe and Robert Rosenkranz. August 6th, 2-7pm. Reception for the artist at 5pm. On view through September 25th.