Guilty Pleasures is a photobook I have been working on for the past five years. This project deposits the viewer into an endless Syracuse, NY winter, with images that build a bizarre, collective psyche shared by a community of people who know they are about to hit an existential impasse. Readers will discover a group of friends who find comfort in their camaraderie, question where they will end up, and desperately try to keep control of their lives.The launch of Guilty Pleasures the book opens with a solo show in September 2015 at Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia PA. In October I will be presenting my project at the SPE Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. A performance and slideshow will be presented at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester NY in November of 2015 in addition to an appearance at Lightwork Community Lab and a Party/Performance at Spark Contemporary Art Space in Syracuse NY. The second exhibition will open in April 2016 at Duplex Gallery in Portland, OR, coinciding with photo month. Many more events to be announced. -JM
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Jay Muhlin has a BFA in Photography from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and an MFA in Transmedia/Photography from Syracuse University. His images have appeared in the LA Weekly, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, Mother Jones, PDN, Metropolis, and The Village Voice. Completed residencies include the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY, The Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, NY, and the Contemporary Artists Center at Woodside in Troy, NY. Muhlin currently works as a photographer at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and teaches photography at The College of New Jersey, Rowan, and La Salle universities. He is an Artist Member of the Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia, and the 2014 Esther & Harvey Graitzer Memorial Prize winner for photography.