IIn 2004, after moving across the street from the Funky Buddha Lounge, Jonathan Gitelson found that his car was being festooned daily with nightclub flyers. He collected more than 1,000 of them, spent three months sewing them into a car cover, and took pictures of his covered car in front of the nightspots advertised. Eight of these large photos are now on view at Peter Miller, along with the car cover, in a show that not only has a unique history but that “talks back” to our culture. Though urban clutter can encourage passivity, Gitelson takes an active approach. “Cover my car with flyers?” he seems to say. “I’ll show you how to really cover a car.” His goal is to reveal that “there are interesting things everywhere,” he says. “Perhaps the next time a viewer sees a club flyer, they’ll actually notice it.”
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Gitelson’s previous projects, documented in artist’s books, combine active engagement with humor. For I Wave in Front of Every Apartment That I’ve Ever Lived in Except for One, he photographed himself in seven different locations from Vermont to Chicago. He didn’t so much want to reference himself, he says, as provide material others might identify with–and his folksy, unassuming approach does invite thinking about the places you’ve lived. After this project Gitelson was wondering what to do next–so he started going up to strangers with a camera and tape recorder, saying “I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing. What are you doing?” One guy who sat down next to him while he was resting told him the story of an evening so interesting that Gitelson made him the subject of his next book, The Ballad of Carl Wilson. Each page includes a different photo of Wilson, a quote from him describing something he’d experienced (seeing a couple “doing it” in a park, he told himself, “Shit, I’ll catch a seat”), and a map showing where the incident occurred. (These projects are anthologized in a book in the gallery.)
