One More Cook in the Kitchen: Marcelo Gomes

Tonight the Levi’s Workshop Space hosts the opening reception for an exhibition of images by the Brazilian photographer Marcelo Gomes. The photographs depict a visit by April Bloomfield, celebrity chef/owner of the Spotted Pig and The Breslin, to the Berried Treasures farm in upstate New York, which supplies produce for her restaurants. (Over the weekend, Bloomfield will butcher a pig in the gallery space.)

“The time I spent at the farm, the weather was so strange,” Gomes recalls. “It rained and got super sunny, in all kinds of weird intervals that it gave me different seasons in small increments of time.” Gomes’ impressionistic style would not seem to make him the obvious choice to document Bloomfield’s visit, but his work fits in with the increasingly adventurous approach Levi’s has taken with their brand imagery. Print ads in the U.S. feature the work of Ryan McGinley and Melodie McDaniel, while photographs for the upcoming European campaign have been shot by up-and-coming photographer Tracy Antonopolous Recent television ads for Levi’s have been shot by the likes of John Hillcoat (director of The Road), Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre) and M. Blash (Lying).

In a rather atypical career path for an art photographer, Gomes came to the U.S. as a teenager playing college basketball, before taking a rather improbable detour to work for the now-defunct magazine Index. Recalling what lessons he learned during several subsequent years spent working with the photographer Mark Borthwick, Gomes says, “What I learned—and still want to learn—is the importance of hyper-awareness. It’s a way of existing, I would suppose.” So pay attention, and think about what goes on your dinner table, when you head to the exhibition tonight.

THE LEVI’S WORSHOP IS AT 18 WOOSTER STREET, NEW YORK.