Nathaniel Tetsuro Paolinelli

Press Release

ALBUQUERQUE, NM—

Richard Levy Gallery is pleased to present Seventh and Central, a solo show by Nathaniel Tetsuro Paolinelli. The pieces in this exhibition document in anthropological detail the regional, car-based culture of the Southwest and specifically highlight the significance of Route 66. This exhibition is a Route 66 Centennial Certified Project and part of a national effort to commemorate the living legacy of the road.

Since 2017, Nathaniel Tetsuro Paolinelli has been photographing the weekly lowrider cruises in downtown Albuquerque. The result of this project, now published by University of New Mexico Press as Seventh and Central: Lowriders, presents the lowrider community through portraits that highlight the congruity of human and machine. Visually, the immaculate jewel-tone paint jobs and gleaming chrome hydraulics echo the tattooed skin, acrylic nails, and gold jewelry of their owners. Families and car club members dote on and rejoice in their vehicles as beloved relations or even extensions of themselves, making a portrait of them incomplete without the metal chassis. Paolinelli’s photographs are boldly lit and gritty, but shot through with moments of tenderness: a father holding his sleeping infant, a child dressed for the Day of the Dead, or a pit bull panting happily on the asphalt beside its owners.

Nathaniel Tetsuro Paolinelli (b. 1976) is a documentary photographer of Japanese and Italian heritage based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work is in the collection of the Albuquerque Museum and has been shown at 516 ARTS, the El Paso Museum of Archaeology, and Black Box Gallery in Portland, among others.