Caleb Stein presents Down By The Hudson
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Starts5 Nov 2026 6.30PM
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Ends5 Nov 2026 9.00PM
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Link
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Author
Can water become the very medium that holds our vulnerability and connects us across political divides? Caleb Stein will join us at PhMuseum Lab on 5 November, 6:30 pm, to present his photobook Down By The Hudson, published by Palo Gallery Press.
About The Book
For more than a decade, Caleb Stein has returned to a swimming hole along Wappinger Creek in Poughkeepsie, New York. It is one of the last informal public spaces in the region: no fee, no ID, no questions asked, a place where an undocumented resident and a Trump supporter swing off the same rope swing. People gather there in defiance of county regulations and, now, of a political climate that has made the simple act of meeting near water feel like an act of resistance.
The photographs look closely at what the place releases in the men who come to it. A particular tenderness. A lowering of guard. A vulnerability the rest of their lives may not permit. At a moment when so much feels broken, the work is a sustained document of a place where things actually work, where people from different walks of life find their way to each other.
Stein began the project at 19 and is now 32; the book marks the release of a body of work he has been making for a third of his life.
About The Artist
Caleb Stein (b. 1994, London) is an artist and writer based in Brooklyn. His work takes the form of photography, installation, artist books, critical writing, and editorial projects, often sustained by prolonged return to a single subject or place. Among his five books are American Glitch (Gnomic Book, 2024) and How to Move a Mountain (Luhz Press, 2024), both with essays by David Campany; his artist duo work with Andrea Orejarena has been shown at Deichtorhallen Hamburg and Photo Forum Pasquart. Works from his decade-long project Down by the Hudson are held in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. Stein is represented by Palo Gallery, New York, ROSEGALLERY, Los Angeles, and Vin Gallery, Shanghai. He is co-founder and editor of September Magazine.
Admission to the event is free. For more information, write to us at lab@phmuseum.mom.
