Fred Padula and Pedro Citoler: as Above September 2, 2010

Fred Padula is a photographer and filmmaker best known for the cult climbing classic El Capitan. In 1976, Padula started flying small planes. From this vantage point, he became aware of how man's activities were changing the landscape and began shooting aerial photos. If you've flown in a commercial airplane, you've seen the earth from 30,000 feet. But most people have not seen it from 1,000 feet, where the benign and the destructive are seen from a new vantage point, as a contaminated landscape mysteriously evokes the beauty of what has been decimated. Pedro Citoler takes flight over German cities in a powered paraglider. Flying closer to the earth, Citoler captures the German allotment gardens known as Kleingartens. Initially provided to German city dwellers as gardens in which to grow their own food, they are increasingly used for recreation and social gatherings. Citoler's voyeuristic images are playful, infusing the quotidian and mundane with the joy of discovery.