CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/28/2024

This week, we gather!

As Americans begin their annual migration across the country to feast with families, friends and foes, what better inspiration than Neal Slavin’s classic 1976 photobook, When Two or More Are Gathered Together—out now in a new, expanded edition from Damiani. On June 5, 1973, Slavin initated the project with a Memo-to-self. His plan: to document stereotypes and clichés; to understand the relationship of the one to the many; to study peer groups, vanity, frailty and ego. “Possible outcome: When a group presents itself fully to the camera, revealing the totems and markings that make it unique and individual, then that group will simultaneously reveal the innate sensation of belonging. I envision a work that communicates the desire to belong in America in the mid-1970s and the conflicts caused by that wish. In short, I want to photograph groups—they are the American icon.” Featured here, Pugs, New York, New York (1991). See more holiday gift suggestions here!