Brian McKee

Brian McKee. Born in Kansas City, lives in New York. Working with photography since 1995. Had his first major solo exhibition in 2002 in Vienna. His latest series, Urbanus, is the final piece of his "Detritrus" trilogy, a series of large-scale photos exploring specific architecture in natural lighting.

Describe Urbanus. This project was composed of Detritus, which was my very first project in Afghanistan, and then Re-build-ings in Uzbekistan, and Urbanus, which was shot in India. This last segment is looking at the idea of abandoned cities. These are all civilizations, cities, self-contained communities, that were all inhabited and all fell apart for various reasons-they all collapsed. For Detritus in Afghanistan, I looked at the deterioration of a contemporary society. The interiors were all very European in architecture and structure. From there, I started looking at older places. One of the main places I photographed for Urbanus was built sometime between 1650 and 1680, and was built strictly to become an ideal city. It was inhabited for eight years and then abandoned because it wasn't built next to a renewable water source.

How do you choose the subjects of your images? Typically, I spend five to six months researching a project.

Describe the dynamic for the perfect photograph. Knowing what you want and going to that space and just physically being within it.

How do you choose the locations that you are researching? The concept that I am working with [determines them]. I like to think of my pictures as metaphors. This is why the work is not labeled "Agra-India 2005"; it is all meant to be seen as a larger project.

What do you find compelling about photography? That is a two-step answer. One is just the way people have been looking at photography in the last 20 years. In 1985, photography was not so highly thought of by the major museums and most important galleries. And now, they all have very strong photo programs.

Having said that, I work with photography because you can do so much with it. There are a lot of people who are doing digital work or manipulation, or?display photographs that are hand-painted over the image. It is very versatile. Photography transcends, more than any other art form, all of the boundaries.

Urbanus can be seen at Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery through April 9. 1018 Madison Ave. (betw. 78th & 79th Sts.), 212-721-5350; Tues.-Sat. 10-5, free.