Down by the Hudson is my personal ode to a creek in Poughkeepsie, NY, a small town in New York State where I lived, on and off, between 2013–2022. The work is the product of collaborative relationships with the people I photograph. With each of the photographs I want to convey a lyrical, loving expression of the playful exchanges between me, the photographer, and the people I’m photographing.
This work cannot exist apart from its political context. In 2016, the presidential and local elections were almost neck-and-neck between political parties in Poughkeepsie, to the point where you could have fit the difference into a bar on a Saturday night. The day after the election, the sense of tension and conflict became palpable as I walked down Poughkeepsie’s Main Street. I learned that in the 1990s, IBM’s local headquarters downsized and left thousands unemployed. In many ways, Poughkeepsie is like countless other small American towns grappling with the effects of post-industrialization. This heated political moment marked a turning point for this project. It wasn’t only about understanding an often mythologized conception of America, but a way of grappling with this conflict through photography, with its extraordinary capacity to bridge specific moments and details with broader notions of the universal and the collective.
Annika & Johnathan, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Forest Sculpture, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Leo, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Leo, Lexi, Lily, Willa 2022. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Log in Rain, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Michael, Oden, and Matthew, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Skyler and Malikai, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Tae Shawn, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Three Trees, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Sherika & Sanjay, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
It was during this time that I started going to a local watering hole, a modern-day Eden tucked away behind a drive-in movie theater on the outskirts of town. The watering hole became a central component of my work because it represented an idyllic space where people from all walks of life came together and let their guard down. The more time I spent at the watering hole, the more I wanted to convey the struggles and beauties of this town with care. For several years I have continued to photograph at this watering hole, developing close relationships with many of the people I collaborate with and sharing the work with them as it develops. I am fascinated by how people carry themselves in this space, how the natural environment brings people together; in fact, county regulations forbid people from gathering in this space, and so the whole experience of simply being at this watering hole is informed by this sense of joyfully illicit activity.
I am particularly interested in the effect this space has on men—the way it softens them. There’s something about this creek and its softly flowing waters that makes men gentler, more open to a radical vulnerability and tenderness. I’m interested in how my photographs can offer a more complicated view of masculinity, and the effect this space seems to have on the men I meet. Increasingly, I’m interested in the notion of a magical realist documentary mode. I started photographing at this watering hole when I was a student in university, and now, a decade later, the work has also become a way to reflect on my own life and my relationship to photography. This is the town where I met my partner and fell in love—in fact, Andrea introduced me to this watering hole when we were still in university. I wonder how many people have fallen in love at this creek over the millennia.
Braily, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Michael, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Michael Embracing His Friend, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Statue in Water, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY, LA.
Caleb Stein is an artist based in NY. His work has been exhibited and published internationally and is held in the permanent collections of J. Paul Getty Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, NY State Museum, Nguyen Art Foundation, and The Thomas H. Lee & Ann Tenenbaum Family Collection. Books include ‘How to Move a Mountain’ Luhz Press, 2024, Long Time No See (made as an artist duo with Andrea Orejarena), Jiazazhi Press, 2022, and ‘American Glitch’ (made with Orejarena), Gnomic Book, 2024. These books are held in the special collections at MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Rijksmuseum, Stanford University, Yale University, Princeton Univeristy, and Center for Book Arts. Stein is represented by ROSEGALLERY in LA for his solo work, and for duo work with Orejarena they are represented by Palo Gallery in New York and Vin Gallery in HCMC.
Features on his work have appeared in The New York Times, The British Journal of Photography, Photograph Magazine, LA Review of Books, The Guardian, Vogue Italia, and i-D Vice, among other places.
Stein’s work with Orejarena will appear in their first solo museum show at Deichtorhallen in Hamburg in September, curated by Nadine Isabelle Henrich, bringing together their work from American Glitch and Long Time No See with new site-specific sculpture and video installations. Stein’s work has been exhibited at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, FOAM, Red Hook Labs, The Curator’s Room, PHMuseum, Belfast Photo Festival, Photo Vogue Festival, Vincom Center for Contemporary Art, ROSEGALLERY, Palo Gallery, and Vin Gallery.
Copyright © Caleb Stein and ROSEGALLERY, LA, all rights reserved
