Vermont Center for Photography

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Gene Butera

- Sep 2007

Opus Three of the Continuing Series Random Notes On Passing Sights In No Particular Order

Gene Butera has spent much of his long photography career looking for things that we don’t usually see.  He photographs mundane and commonplace objects or occurrences in interesting compositions so the viewer cannot help but notice, even be drawn into, Gene Butera’s visual world. Butera says,"What I wish for most is that we take the time to notice our surroundings.”

The new September exhibit at the Vermont Center for Photography consists of four parts:
Collaborations consists of pictorial abstractions of the graffiti found on the walls of buildings in Florence, Italy.  The 99 images will be displayed for a few seconds on a large TV screen in a continuous loop. By documenting the segments of wall messages, Butera feels he has collaborated with the original artist to form a continuum of personal expression.

Plane Images are portions of three well worn army aircraft fuselages sitting in a business park in Washington Utah.

All Overs is a phrase borrowed from critic Clement Greenberg that he used to describe the works of Jackson Pollack and Helen Frankenthaler.
Butera says, “The eight works shown typify my preoccupation with concrete sidewalk patterns, close-ups of bush branches or even staples with bits of poster remnants.”

Black and White Notes are captured, random sights that have caught Butera’s sharp eye. In addition, Butera has included portraits of Utah artists and shopkeepers of Siena and Florence, Italy.

Gene Butera graduated from Pratt Institute in graphic design. He worked in New York City on a number of magazines as a graphic designer and art director. In 1960 he joined Car and Driver Magazine where he worked until 1975, except for three years as a consultant to special interest magazines. From 1975 to 1999, Butera was in Detroit, where he became a Senior VP/Creative Director at the Campbell-Ewald Advertising Agency. Butera had his first one-man show at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan in 1987.  He retired to St. George, Utah in 1991 where he practiced his fine art photography full time and exhibited at numerous Utah galleries. In 2000 Butera came back east to settle in Amherst Massachusetts. He has exhibited at the A.P.E. gallery in Northampton, A3 Gallery in Amherst, and at the Fitchburg Art Museum.

A selection of images from the exhibit

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Past Exhibits

2007

2006