Debs & Co. is pleased to present Fresno/Newark, an exhibition of twenty new photographs by Richard Renaldi. Fresno/Newark will be Mr. Renaldi's first solo exhibition. In Fresno/Newark, Mr. Renaldi uses his eight by ten to describe some of the people of these two cities, at once separated and connected by a continent and a culture. Portraying individuals from various backgrounds, Mr. Renaldi also describes the cities in question. It is sometimes difficult to tell the locales apart, so thorough has the acculturation of North America been. At the same time, the people Mr. Renaldi portrays are individuals both typical and idiosyncratic. Mr. Renaldi's approach to his subject is that of the street documentarian; scouting his location, the photographer invites people who interest him to sit for their portrait. While doing so, Mr. Renaldi also begins a photographic survey of the place. In this sense, the portrait of the individual becomes a topographical study of the physical and cultural environment, and vice versa. In Jana, Mr. Renaldi depicts a girl of nine standing in the doorframe of a storefront, hair and head wrapped in a purple scarf, feet expertly negotiating a pair of rollerblades, eyes locked on the camera lens, and by extension, on the eyes of the photographer and the viewer. While Jana wears the jeans and tee shirt typical of kids her age, she is typical in no other way. In the windows at her side are displayed the oddball detritus of everyday living: a lamp, gallon containers of floor adhesive, an inflatable pink elephant, a crocheted throw. Whether the items have anything to do directly with Jana is unclear. Is the storefront her home, a hangout, or simply the random spot where she and the photographer met? Whether the city is Fresno or Newark is almost impossible to tell; it is only the dried magnolia leaves around Jana's feet that suggest the locale is Fresno. It is against the monotonies of dominant American culture and its catalogue of banal signifiers that the politic underlying Mr. Renaldi's project comes out. In all these images, it is not the long list of items that surround, clothe or otherwise clutter the field which identify the individual as a person. It is their gaze, the way they carry themselves, the way they interact with one another, the photographer and the viewer that reveals their personality and humanity. These are at the base of Mr. Renaldi's work, and are what make Mr. Renaldi's a photography of humanism. Mr. Renaldi most recently exhibited in Strangers, the International Center for Photography's first triennial. In 2004 he will have a solo exhibition at Western Project in Los Angeles. Mr. Renaldi has exhibited at Gracie Mansion Gallery, Feature, and the 494 Gallery. His work has appeared in New York Magazine, Jane, Time Out/New York, the Village Voice, Blue, and many other publications. Mr. Renaldi divides his time between New York City and Los Angeles.