Jonathan Gitelson

(American, b. 1975)

Reunion, 2006
From the Car Project series

This form of advertising intrigued me – an attempt at communication with consumers that was clearly failing, creating huge volumes of what was essentially expensively printed instant garbage. – Jonathan Gitelson

Living across the street from the Funky Buddha Lounge meant that clearing fliers for other nightclubs off his windshield became a morning ritual for Jonathan Gitelson. From the summer of 2004 to January of 2005 he collected more than 1,000 such fliers and then spent the winter sewing them into a car cover. With the cover draped over his car and his car parked in front of various establishments represented by the fliers, just the wheels of Gitelson’s Civic are visible underneath a mass of advertising. Photographed during the day, the unpopulated and unusually clean city streets in these pictures yield no trace of the lively atmosphere conveyed by the flyers or litter strewn curbs they contribute to. The Car Project includes eight large-scale photographs and is sometimes exhibited with the car cover on a Civic-shaped metal sculpture.

Jonathan Gitelson holds a BA in literature and photography from Marlboro College, Vermont (1997) and an MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago (2004). Solo exhibitions of his work include The Car Project and Social Studies at Peter Miller Gallery, Chicago; Dream Job at Community College of Southern Nevada, North Las Vegas; Urbanism at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design Photography Gallery; and New Works at O’Connor Gallery of Art, Dominican University, River Forest, IL. Gitelson’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Victoria and Albert Museum, London, among other institutions.

— Kendra Greene

Felts, Susannah J. “The Litter Sweater.” The Chicago Reader 26 Aug. 2005: 13-4.

http://www.thegit.net/