I'm admittedly like a little girl when it comes to horses - I just love them! I really, really do! So you can imagine my joy when I came upon the spacious Soho gallery filled with Roberto Dutesco's oversized, sepia-toned and black-and-white photographs of The Wild Horses of Sable Island. Dutesco was born in Romania in 1961 and relocated to Canada in the early 80's before opening a studio in New York in 1992 and becoming a successful fashion photographer. He first traveled to Sable Island, Nova Scotia in 1994 and captured the spirit of the beautiful, majestic, noble wild horses there via photographs exhibiting their strength and athleticism, sense of family and camaraderie, and their deep, expressive eyes. The next 14 years repeatedly brought Dutesco back to Sable Island for more photographs and/or film footage for a black-and-white short film, Sable Horses (2000) which inspired a feature documentary for Bravo titled Chasing Wild Horses (2008).
Notes for the show state that Sable Island is approximately the length of Manhattan and the width of Central Park. It's been the host of 275 shipwrecks since the early 17th-century, whose only known survivors were the horses - who now happen to be the only living mammals on the island. Somewhere between 175-450 of these horses live on the island today in bands consisting of 2-10 members of varying sexes and ages, though many males are known to wander in "loosely structured all-male groups" or "bachelor groups" and older stallions are said to wander solo (as loners... rebels). The horses are on the smaller side, with males weighing between 270-360 kg (595-790 lb) and measuring about 140 cm (~ 4.5 ft) from the withers (shoulders). Females tend to be smaller. They are said to most resemble the Spanish barb and/or the Acadian horse.
In 2006, The Wild Horses of Sable Island, photoworks by Roberto Dutesco curated by Peter Tunney opened at 13 Crosby Street in Soho, showcasing over 125 gorgeous, large-scale photos of these wonderful creatures. You don't have to be a little girl to swoon over the breath-taking photographs of these magnificent animals. To learn more about Dutesco and The Wild Horses of Sable Island, go to dutescoart.com, where you can also see his pictures of the horses (my iPhone pics below don't do them any justice.) Through 2010.
You don't have to be a girl to like horses. I think these photographs are beautiful.
Posted by: Todd | 09/02/2009 at 03:45 PM