Mark Seliger:
In My Stairwell

The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston Texas presents Mark Seliger: In My Stairwell on display until June 4th, 2006. The series consists of photographs of contemporary artists, musicians, and actors taken in the stairwell of Seliger’s studio in New York’s West Village. In My Stairwell is one of the MFAH’s entries for FotoFest, an international photography festival in Houston that takes place annually in March.

Well-known for his work as former chief photographer of Rolling Stone, Seliger currently works for GQ and Vanity Fair. Seliger conceived of the Stairwell project as “an opportunity [for me] to create a collection of portraits of artists, ranging from peripheral to mainstream, to make a record of our times. The Stairwell environment became the common denominator that related the subjects to one another, which they could either make into a personal space for themselves or use it as a background simply to be documented.”

“The strength of Seliger’s portraits lies in his special ability to capture a central characteristic of the individual’s public persona in a new way,” said MFAH photography curator Anne Wilkes Tucker. On view at the MFAH are candid portraits of actors Susan Sarandon, Peter Dinklage, Julia Roberts, Michael J. Fox with Muhammad Ali; musicians Willie Nelson and Mick Jagger; composer Philip Glass; artists Laurie Anderson, Cindy Sherman, and Matthew Barney; modern dancers Eiko and Koma; circus and theatrical clown Bill Irwin; opera director Robert Wilson; author Tom Wolfe; filmmaker Mel Brooks; and comedian Jerry Seinfeld.


Image Captions:

[MelBrooks.jpg]
Mark Seliger, American, born 1959
Mel Brooks, from the series In My Stairwell, 1998-2005
May 4, 2005
Platinum/Palladium photograph
Collection of the Artist

[Sarandon.jpg]
Mark Seliger, American, born 1959
Susan Sarandon, from the series In My Stairwell, 1998-2005
December 7, 2004
Platinum/Palladium photograph
Collection of the Artist

[Seinfeld.jpg]
Mark Seliger, American, born 1959
Jerry Seinfeld, from the series In My Stairwell, 1998-2005
February 1, 2005
Platinum/Palladium photograph
Collection of the Artist