biography

Chris Payne (b. 1968), a photographer based in New York City, specializes in the documentation of America’s vanishing architecture and industrial landscape. Trained as an architect, he has a natural interest in how things are purposefully designed and constructed, and how they work. His first book, New York’s Forgotten Substations: The Power Behind the Subway (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), offered dramatic, rare views of the behemoth machines that are hidden behind modest facades in New York City. His latest book, Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals (MIT Press, 2009), which includes an essay by the renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks, is the result of a seven-year exploration of America’s vast and largely abandoned state mental institutions.

Payne' s interest in historic buildings and industrial architecture began shortly after college, when he documented cast iron bridges, grain elevators, and power plants for the Historic American Engineering Record of the National Park Service, and, later, produced measured drawings for New York University’s excavations at Aphrodisias, a Greco-Roman city in Turkey. Whether the site was 50 or 2000 years old, he realized how quickly buildings, places, and people can be forgotten.

For all his personal work, Payne uses a large format view camera because it records a wealth of detail and information—more than the human eye can comprehend. When printed at large scale, the photographs become almost inhabitable, conveying the beauty and significance of places most people do not have the opportunity to see firsthand.

education

University of Pennsylvania, M. Arch., 1996
Columbia University, B.A. in Arch., 1990

books

Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009)
New York’s Forgotten Substations: The Power Behind the Subway (New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002)

awards

New York State Council on the Arts, Individual Artist Grant, 2012
New England Book Show Award, 2010
Ken Book Award, 2010
New York Foundation for the Arts, Photography Fellowship, 2008
New York State Council on the Arts, Individual Artist Grant, 2003
New York State Council on the Arts, Individual Artist Grant, 1999
Graham Foundation Grant, Individual Artist Grant, 1999

exhibitions

2012
Het Dolhuys, Haarlem, Netherlands: Asylum, October 2012
Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, NY: One Steinway Place, 7/19-9/29, 2012
Museum Dr. Guislain, Gent, Belgium: Asylum, June-September 2012

2011
La Chambre, Strasbourg, France: Asylum; November 2011
Pearlstein Gallery, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA: Asylum; 9/26-10/29, 2011
Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA: Picture Books (group exhibition); 6/7-7/30, 2011
Elmaleh Gallery, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA: Asylum; March-April 2011
Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College, Muhlenberg, PA: Asylum; 1/19-2/26, 2011

2010
Kennedy Museum of Art, Ohio University, Athens, OH: Asylum; 8/27-12/30, 2010
Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, NY: Summer Place, 7/22-9/25, 2010 (group exhibition)
Clic Gallery, New York, NY: Asylum; 4/13-5/23, 2010

2005
Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, New York, NY: Changing Tides: The Evolving Landscape of the East River (group show)           

2003 
New York Transit Museum, Brooklyn, NY: New York’s Forgotten Substations     

2001 
Municipal Arts Society, New York, NY: New York’s Forgotten Substations

commissions

Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, New York, NY: Changing Tides: The Evolving Landscape of the East River        
Friends of the Highline, New York, NY

press

The New Yorker, Photobooth. "Seeing the Subway", 2/26/13
Esquire Magazine Russia. "Steinway", 2/25/13
Modem. "Modem Europe", January 2013
Urban Omnibus. "Disappearing Histories: A Conversation with Christopher Payne", 10/3/12
Untapped Cities. "Inside the Steinway Piano Factory by Christopher Payne", 9/18/12
The Wall Street Journal. "Chaos vs. a World of Harmony", 9/7/12
Elle. "Christopher Payne Exhibits Photos from Steinway Piano Factory", 7/20/12
The New Yorker. "The Making of a Steinway Piano", 7/19/12
Design Bureau. "Photographing Mental Asylums and Textile Factories", 6/5/12
The New York Times Magazine. "The Steinway Way", 4/27/12
Architecture Review Asia Pacific. “Pocket Utopias”, March/April 2012
The Atlantic. "Inside the Haunting World of 19th Century Mental Hospitals", 9/9/11
National Public Radio,The Picture Show. "America's Asylums in Photographs", 9/4/11
TLS-Times Literary Supplement. Book Review, 4/22/11(PDF)
Frieze Magazine. Book Review, April 2011(PDF)
World Health Design.Book Review, April 2011(PDF)
The Athens News. Exhibit Review, 11/22/10
Guernica Magazine. Photo Essay, October 2010
The Wall Street Journal, Speakeasy. Lecture Review, 10/1/10
Afterimage Magazine. "Sanctuary or Prison?", Vol. 38, Issue 2, Sept/Oct 2010 (PDF)
Scope Magazine. Book Review, September 2010 (PDF)
The Post, Ohio University. Interview, 9/14/10
American Photo Magazine. "Falling Apart", Sept/Oct 2010 (PDF)
Zoom Magazine. Book Review, May/June 2010 (PDF)
The Architect's Newspaper. Exhibit Review, 5/14/10
The New York Times. Exhibit/Book Review, 5/13/10
Boston Globe. "The Photographic Art of Insane Asylums", 4/2/10
BOMB. Book Review, Spring 2010 (PDF)
The Atlantic. Book Review and Interview, April 2010
The Pennsylvania Gazette. "Architecture of Madness", March/April 2010
APA PsycCRITIQUES. "Psychiatry's Disappearing Past", 2/10/10, Vol. 55, Release 6, Article 4 (PDF)
New Statesman. Book Review, 2/4/10
New Humanist. Book Review, January/February 2010
Columbia Magazine, "Ghosts", Winter 2009
The New York Times. "Showcase: Emptied but Still Secret", 11/23/09
The New York Times. "The Lost World of Creedmoor Hospital", 11/12/09
Scientific American Mind. Book Review, 11/09
Omnivoracious. "Amazon’s Best Books of the Year", 10/25/09
Boston Globe. "Getting Inside State Mental Hospitals", 10/25/09
Preservation Magazine. "A Terrible Thing To Waste", 10/12/09
Dwell Magazine. "Asylum by Christopher Payne", 10/1/09
The New York Review of Books. "The Lost Virtues of the Asylum", 9/24/09
The New Republic. "Ruins of the Asylum", 9/23/09
The New Yorker, The Book Bench. "Asylum: A Photo Essay", 9/11/09
Booklist. “Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals”, 9/1/09
The New York Times, Book Review. "Asylum", 8/30/09 (PDF)
Print Magazine. "The Last Run". 8/08 (PDF)
The Architect’s Newspaper. "Lost City in the Woods". 4/08 (PDF)
Architectural Record. "Christopher Payne: Documenting before their demise". 4/06
Psychiatric News. "Rational Buildings Designed to Calm the Disturbed Mind", 9/05 (PDF)
ART News. "Power Elite", 5/03 (PDF)
AJ [Architect’s Journal]. “New York’s Forgotten Substations”, 12/2/02
The New York Times. "Vanishing Behemoths", 10/13/02 (PDF)

lectures

Openhouse New York, New York, NY
University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, New York, NY
University of Pennsylvania, School of Design, Philadelphia, PA
New York Public Library, New York, NY
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Muhlenberg College, Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg, PA
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
Long Island Center of Photography, Manhasset, NY
Columbia University, School of Medicine, New York, NY
NAMI-NYC, New York, NY
Kennedy Museum of Art, Athens University, Athens, OH
APA Institute on Psychiatric Services, Boston, MA
The New School for Social Research, New York, NY
Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, CT
University of Maryland, School of Architecture, College Park, MD
New York University, School of Medicine, New York, NY
University of Florida, School of Medicine, Gainesville, FL
New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
New York Academy of Medicine, New York, NY
University of Texas, School of Architecture, Austin, TX
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD
Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, New York, NY

interviews/video

National Public Radio, All Things Considered. "Nation's Jails Struggle with Mentally Ill Prisoners", 9/4/11
ABC Radio National, By Design. Radio Interview, 1/27/10
Craig Fahle Show, Detroit Public Radio. Radio Interview, 1/19/10 (MP3)
University of Texas School of Architecture. Fall 2009 Lecture Series
New Hampshire Public Radio, Word of Mouth. “Amongst the Ruins”, 10/29/09
New York Transit Museum. Online Gallery: “New York’s Forgotten Substations”, 9/03