Julia Calfee: INSIDE THE CHELSEA HOTEL

One of the most impressive portraits of the hotel is a body of photographs and texts created by Julia Calfee, recently published in a successful book with a preface by Miloš Forman, a resident of the hotel himself. The photographs are presented here for the first time in the form of an exhibition.

Julia Calfee has lived and photographed in the Chelsea Hotel for four years which enabled her to befriend a number of its permanent hotel guests and made her camera almost invisible. As she points out, “When I photographed at the Chelsea Hotel, I would stay in a space or situation for hours. Time would pass and my presence would become less and less visible. Sometimes I would even disappear.” Thanks to her long-term stay and established friendships, in one word thanks to the inside view, Julia Calfee has managed to capture that which would elude most of the other photographers and filmmakers: the unique intimate atmosphere of the place formed by personalities of its inhabitants and the overall environment including its archetypes, legends and ghosts.

Julia Calfee was born in the USA, but has spent most of her professional life living and working in Europe. She majored in journalism at the New York University and studied art history at the Sorbonne in Paris. Her publications comprise Photogénèse (Joan Miró Foundation, 1995) The Mountain Spirits of Mongolia (Richard Liu Foundation, 2002) and Spirits and Ghosts: Journeys through Mongolia (PowerHouse Books, 2003). Her photographs and photographic essays have been published in leading international magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Time, Business Week, The Sunday Times of London, Paris Match, The Guardian, Elle Italia, Elle Japan, Paris Photo, Digital Photography, Corriere della Sera and foto8. Julia Calfee has exhibited her photographs also in museums and galleries in France, United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, Spain and the USA.