Stephen Wilkes: A Day in the Life… @ JL Modern

NOVEMBER 15 – DECEMBER 13, 2025

Stephen Wilkes: A Day in the Life… brings together photographs from the artist’s ongoing Day to Night project, made during days that look nothing like a normal schedule. While most people move from morning routines to evening plans, Wilkes climbs into a single vantage point and stays there for 18 to 36 hours, perched on rooftops, scaffolding, or custom-built platforms as the world turns beneath him. From that fixed position he makes thousands of exposures, later weaving the most telling moments into a seamless image that gathers the passage of time into one frame.

Stephen Wilkes: A Day in the Life… brings together photographs from the artist’s ongoing Day to Night project, made during days that look nothing like a normal schedule. While most people move from morning routines to evening plans, Wilkes climbs into a single vantage point and stays there for 18 to 36 hours, perched on rooftops, scaffolding, or custom-built platforms as the world turns beneath him. From that fixed position he makes thousands of exposures, later weaving the most telling moments into a seamless image that gathers the passage of time into one frame.

The exhibition moves between iconic urban centers and remote landscapes. Visitors will recognize the crowds along the Coney Island Boardwalk, the curve of South Beach and Santa Monica Pier, and the Flatiron Building and Central Park in New York, set alongside the stillness of Yosemite’s Tunnel View, Iceland’s Blue Lagoon and volcanic terrain, the Pont de la Tournelle in Paris, and the wild spaces of the Serengeti, the Boteti River, Churchill’s polar bear territory, and the Yukon. Seen together, these works trace the artist’s travels across continents and climates, revealing how light, weather, and human or animal activity create a distinct rhythm in every place he visits.

In Wilkes’s photographs, a single image contains many overlapping stories. Dawn, midday, twilight, and night sit side by side; commuters, beachgoers, worshippers, and migrating animals share the same visual field. Each work asks viewers to slow down and wander through its details, noticing how communities move, how seasons change, and how fragile environments hold both beauty and tension. The exhibition offers a portrait of the world shaped by patience, sustained attention, and a deep curiosity about how time connects us to the places we inhabit.