David H. Gibson: The McManaway Studio Project

Photographer David H. Gibson met David McManaway in 1964. A long friendship followed and in 1993 Gibson began documenting McManaway’s extraordinary studio. A visit to McManaway’s studio was akin to stepping into one of McManaway’s works of art; walls, ceilings and table tops covered with carefully selected cultural castoffs silently awaiting a second chance as fine art. Gibson’s photographs of the studio, dismantled after McManaway’s death in 2010, are as close as we can get to walking into McManaway’s unique, (Mojo) Jomo themed amusement park.

“David McManaway’s exhibit at the Frances Chandler Gallery in 1964 was my first introduction to David’s work. Subsequently we met and my interest in David’s work expanded. Our friendship grew and I began to collect his art. In visits to his studio the arrangements of objects encountered were poignant, unexpected, and brilliant. By my next visit the relationships would have changed and new objects would be placed among the old. These ephemeral, quixotic events of placement appear in one form then disappear into other places and spaces. David’s studio is dynamic, titillating, and provocative.

When a tree falls in the forest we are not likely to be there to hear and see the event. David’s studio is like the forest, the ongoing placement of visual events continues but the possibility of seeing and appreciating this creative effort is lost. In 1993 I began to photograph in the studio, selecting relationships that interested me.”

David H. Gibson