Coins for the Crossing

• Prize
• Photographer
  Matthew Besinger, United States

Coins for the Crossing is the end of a project that began in 2001. An early catalog of its
landscapes, Dead Desert Night, was printed in limited numbers for a solo show in NY. The
portraits, still lives, horizons, painted maps, and ephemera present a quiet and private
West. The night bars inhabitants, other than the occasional traveler, spiritualist, rogue
border patrol, prostitute, astronomer, or anarchist. Their narratives share the Western
act of searching: for solitude, transcendence, new starts, other worlds. The pictures are
fascinated with historical tropes, myth, and mortality- uneasy, even unkind, ugly but in
love with every forlorn thing. The progress of the book converts anxiety into the color of
a sustained fantasy life- one that occupies outposts in the desert's broken reaches.

Awards Shows
MIART, International Contemporary Art Fair, Milan, Italy
Madrid Photo, El Ojo, Madrid, Spain
Art Verona, Independents, Verona, Italy
Daylight/CDS, Durham NC
Present Tense, Photo Center NW, Seattle WA
Pieces of Heaven, Christie's Auction, Beverly Hills CA
Colors of Life, Kkien Atelier, Milan, Italy
New York Photo Festival, New York NY
Group Show No. 27, Humble Arts Foundation, online
Dead Desert Night, Creative Pier Gallery, New York NY
Aftermath, Target Gallery, Washington DC

Publications
Annex the Desert, Attice Slope, Tucson AZ
Heaven, Vogue (New York, Paris)
Dead Desert Night, Attic Slope, Tucson AZ
Washington Post, "Imploding House," September 18, 2008

Juried Reviews
Critical Mass, Portland OR (Finalist)
Review Santa Fe 100, Santa Fe NM (Individual Listing)
Fresh Portfolio Review, Lucie Foundation, Los Angeles CA

Awards
2nd Place, Denise Wolff, Aperture, Juror, Present Tense, Photo Center NW, Seattle WA
3rd Place, Colors of Life, Washington DC
Honorable Mention, International Photography Awards, London
Fine Art Image Nominee, New York Photo Festival, New York NY