15 POSITIVES

Dries Van Noten and Die Plek are honored to present the first U.S. exhibition of Gus Van Sant’s photographic works in over a decade at The Little House, 451 N. La Cienega Blvd., in Los Angeles.  Opening Saturday, April 9, the exhibition will be on view through Saturday, May 7.

The exhibition, entitled 15 Positives, features a selection of portraits, some taken in the 1980s and 1990s while casting his provocative and pioneering films Mala Noche, Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, and To Die For. Even as Van Sant successfully works within Hollywood, he is an artist who subverts protocol and pushes standard definitions of character and storytelling, including casting amateur actors alongside Hollywood’s biggest names, as reflected here. 15 Positives is his vision from that periphery.

ABOUT GUS VAN SANT

Gus Van Sant is an American film director, producer, photographer, and musician who has earned acclaim as both an independent and mainstream filmmaker, based in Los Angeles.

He made his feature-length cinematic directorial debut with Mala Noche (1985), focusing on those existing on society’s fringes. His second feature, Drugstore Cowboy (1989), was highly acclaimed, and earned him screenwriting awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and New York Film Critics Circle and the award for Best Director from the National Society of Film Critics. His next film, My Own Private Idaho (1991), was similarly praised, as was the black comedy To Die For (1995), the drama Good Will Hunting (1997), and the biographical film Milk (2008). For the latter two, Van Sant was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director receiving Best Picture nominations for both films.

In 2003, Van Sant's film about the Columbine High School massacre, Elephant, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Van Sant also received the festival's Best Director Award that same year. Though most of Van Sant's other films received favorable reviews, such as Finding Forrester (2000) and Paranoid Park (2007), some of his efforts, such as the art house production Last Days (2005) and the environmental drama Promised Land (2012), his adaptation of Tom Robbins's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), his 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and The Sea of Trees (2015) have received more mixed reviews from critics.

In addition to directing, Van Sant has written the screenplays for several of his earlier works, and is the author of a novel, Pink. Two books of his photography, “108 Portraits” and “One Step Big Shot”, have been published, and he has released two musical albums.