Photographer James DuSel is known for his quirky black
and white photographs of Baltimore architecture —
images that explore and celebrate both the grand and the
overlooked aspects of the city's buildings. In his work,
DuSel treats the sweeping marble staircase in the Maryland
Institute's Main Building, the ornamentation on the Mount
Vernon United Methodist Church, a transit waiting shed in
Roland Park and a dormer window at the Boys' Latin School
with the same reverence and interest.
Look Again in Baltimore, an exhibition of
DuSel's photographs celebrating the details of Baltimore's
architectural heritage, opens in the gallery at
Evergreen House on Friday, Oct. 7, with a reception
from 5 to 7:30 p.m.
The images also appear in DuSel's book of the same
name, with text by former Sun art critic John
Dorsey, to be published this month by The
Johns Hopkins
University Press. The exhibition remains on view
through Jan. 3.
A longtime admirer of DuSel's work, Dorsey describes
his images as "beautifully produced, with subtle, rich
tonalities and clarity of details" and praises his ability
to capture and isolate the overlooked elements in familiar
buildings. In the book's introduction, Dorsey writes of the
photographs, "Sometimes they made you slap your forehead
and think, 'My God, I've seen that building a hundred
times, but I never noticed that before.' So often they
caught the essence of a building or an aspect of
architecture that a more inclusive picture would have
missed."
Dorsey and DuSel's hope is that after seeing these
images, people will be encouraged to look at architecture
in new ways — to become more conscious of the details
around them, the connections between structures, their
histories and influences.
"Because of the ubiquity of architecture, because
whether inside or outside we are continuously surrounded by
it, it tends to become subject to what Jim calls 'the
anesthesia of daily life,'" Dorsey says.
DuSel gives a guided tour of the exhibition at 2:30
p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 8. The book will be sold in
Evergreen's Museum Shop beginning Oct. 27.