Artist Talk and Book Signing with artist William Greiner
Friday, April 11 at 5 PM on the 3rd floor of the Shaw Center for the Arts
William Greiner’s Neutral Ground: New Orleans 1990–2005 Captures a Pre-Katrina City in Vivid Color
In his breathtakingly beautiful Neutral Ground: New Orleans 1990–2005, William Greiner presents a striking visual record of pre-Katrina New Orleans in the classic styles of William Eggleston and Birney Imes. Printed in Italy under the artist’s direction, the pages explode with color: a father floating in a gelatinous cerulean pool, an abandoned armchair framed by arsenic-green walls, Titian-red tiles atop the old New Orleans Athletic Club, and a riot of pastels inside a Chinese restaurant. Each of the eighty-six photographs reflects a lifetime of making art and documenting place, forming a passionate tribute to Greiner’s lost home.
William Greiner is an American photographer known for his evocative color images of found public and domestic scenes. He began his career as a sports photographer at the age of 19, working for institutions such as The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. Later, he shifted to a more creative photographic process, earning a B.F.A. in Photography from Tufts University before completing an M.B.A. in Finance at Suffolk University. During his studies, he was introduced to the work of William Eggleston, whose influence he would reinterpret in his own unique style.
After a hiatus from photography while working as a real estate consultant in New Orleans, Greiner resumed his artistic practice in 1989 and has since exhibited widely in solo and group shows internationally. His highly sought-after images are held in numerous prestigious public collections, including:
· The Art Institute of Chicago
· The Center for Photography in Bombay, India
· The Dallas Museum of Art
· The Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, Sweden
· The International Center of Photography in New York
· The Library of Congress in Washington, DC
· The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York
· The National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC
Neutral Ground: New Orleans 1990–2005 is published by the University of New Orleans Press and distributed by Hopkins Fulfillment Services.
William Greiner, New Orleans 2017, Plate 13, 2010–2019. Archival digital print. Gift of Michael Beychok.
This photograph by William Greiner (pictured left) is from the LSU Museum of Art’s permanent collection.