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Gil Garcetti

Gil Garcetti

Member, Freestyle Advisory Board of Photographic Professionals

Biography

While many know Gil from his "previous life" as a prosecutor and the Los Angeles County District Attorney, Gil has spent much of his life as an urban photographer. His first photo book, IRON: ERECTING THE WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, November 2002, Balcony Press, has received much critical praise in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, The Oregonian and other publications. The photographs emphasize the contribution of the ironworkers to the building of America, but they also document the beauty of the curved, angled, and bent steel of this building before the exterior skin covered nearly all of this steel. His second book, FROZEN MUSIC, November 2003, Balcony Press, was featured in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, American Photo, Newsweek, Metropolois, Harvard Design Magazine, Moveline's Hollywood Style, and California Lawyer. While Gil's first book focused on the ironworkers and the beauty of the geometry of the raw steel, Gil's second book is his interpretation of the abstract art created by the finished building. This book is a portfolio of 45 panorama lithographs taken from Gil's photos. As a result of these photographs he was invited to exhibit 100 of his photos at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. The exhibition opened January 29 and was extended three times through November 28, 2004. Much of this exhibition formed the first exhibition of the new Virginia Center for Architecture (April - August 2005). He has exhibited at the Millennium Art Museum, Beijing, China, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the Los Angeles County Music Center, the Los Angeles City Municipal Art Gallery, the University of Southern California School of Architecture, Latham and Watkins, Morrison and Forester, and other institutions. Perhaps this country's most prestigious photo magazine, AMERICAN PHOTO, named Gil one of the country's four master photographers for 2003. TIME magazine, October 10, 2005, published a very complimentary two page profile of Gil's change from D.A. to an "acclaimed and stylish photographer". Gil has been taking photographs for as long as he can remember. He became serious about black and white photography with the birth of his daughter over 30 years ago. He studied for a number of years at an adult night high school and took courses in photography at Brooks Institute and UCLA. Gil's third book, DANCE IN CUBA, is a culmination of a four year project in which his photos attempt to convey the spirit of the Cuban people through their dance. (Balcony Press, October 2005) Photos from the book will be the subject of an exhibition at the UCLA Fowler Museum in April 2006. Gil is working on photo projects in West Africa, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles. Gil taught at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government as a Fellow at the Institute of Politics. He is currently serving as President of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. Gil is in demand as a speaker. His topics include photography, politics, ethics, the affect an architecturally daring building can have on a local community, and about the empowerment of career change. He is also the Consulting Producer to the TNT hit series, "The Closer" starring Kyra Sedgwick. Gil was born in Los Angeles, the son of Mexican immigrants. He attended the University of Southern California, the London School of Economics, and UCLA Law School.