Book Launch & Signing

Sarah van Rij and David van der Leeuw

Join us on Thursday 23 November for a book launch of Metropolitan Melancholia by Sarah van Rij and David van der Leeuw. The artists will talk about their new book, moderated by Isabella van Marle, followed by a signing. Metropolitan Melancholia explores the complex push and pull of the modern city, and the weight of its textured histories.

About the book Metropolitan Melancholia

Photographing New York from 2019 to 2022, long-term partners in life, work and love – David van der Leeuw and Sarah van Rij – brought their own distinct expectations to this iconic cityscape: maybe the most visually-mediated of any global metropolis. Together and apart, they walked its streets and absorbed its contours, along and beyond paths trodden by the ceaseless waves of artists, writers and filmmakers before them. For both, the camera was a means to grasp at New York’s contradictions, submit to its spells and think through its oppressive confines.

Surreal and painterly, their abstract images envelop city-dwellers in architectural compositions of light and shadow; cinematic fragments converge with splintered sketches of the everyday. More uneasy back-and-forth than one-sided love letter, Metropolitan Melancholia unties two poetic dialogues with the city. 

During the festive evening we will also present four different prints that will exclusively be for sale at Foam Editions.

© Sarah van Rij
Sarah van Rij and David van der Leeuw

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Book Launch & Signing

Sarah van Rij and David van der Leeuw