New York is famed for its Puerto Rican population, developed through migration beginning in the 1900s and booming in the 1950s. As Puerto Ricans settled in New York over the years, they have the city with their infectious culture, indelibly altering neighbourhoods such as the Bronx, the Lower East Side, Williamsburg and Brooklyn with their rhythm, style, flavour, art, language and Latin cuisine. A native New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, Gottfried presents an ode to Nuyorican life and style, from the 1970s to the present, shot with an unfailingly lyrical eye.
A reprint, now in paperback, of one of Arlene's best books. Gone but never forgotten, Arlene was beloved by many and her work deserves a larger audience. Start here. Before gentrification, New York City was a gritty and inspiring place. And in its midst was Arlene Gottfried, whose eye for the sublime caught it all. Sometimes Overwhelming, her second powerHouse Book, is a manic yet romantic ode to the people of New York City in the 1970s and 80s. From Coney Island to a Hasid at Riis Beach's nude bay to the disco nights of sexual abandon and the children in the original Village Halloween parade, Sometimes Overwhelming is a delightfully lighthearted look at the most outrageous people you might ever see.
Mommieis a remarkable photographic portrait of three generations of women in the family of photographer Arlene Gottfried and an intimate story of the inevitable passage of time and aging. Pictured within, we are introduced to Gottfried's 100 year old immigrant grandmother, fragile mother, and reluctant sister over the breathtaking course of 35 years. An artist turning their eye on their own immediate family is a well explored theme, but Gottfried has achieved the sublime with a multi-decade long commitment to document the intimate lives of her nearest kin. Gottfried succeeds in creating a complete twentieth century portrait of four lives inextricably interwoven through relation, sickness, need, love, and the absence of her father-who passed away while Arlene was still young. Living as many mid-century Jewish New York families did, the Gottfrieds were not wealthy and lacked any trappings of luxury. Close examination of their world on Avenue A in Manhattan's Lower East Side reveals a dimly lit small apartment, cartons of budget saltines and groceries, chipped paint, damaged floor tiles, guarded loose change, and well worn clothes - details natural to the lives of many families of immigrants in New York. Mommieis testament to the passage of time, changes in the generations, losing loved ones and a familial experience at once both similar and unique to all.
Please note that all blank pages in the book were chosen as part of the design by the publisher. A good street photographer must be possessed of many talents: an eye for detail, light, and composition; impeccable timing; a populist or humanitarian outlook; and a tireless ability to constantly shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot and never miss a moment. It is hard enough to find these qualities in trained photographers with the benefit of schooling and mentors and a community of fellow artists and aficionados supporting and rewarding their efforts. It is incredibly rare to find it in someone with no formal training and no network of peers. Yet Vivian Maier is all of these things, a professional nanny, who from the 1950s until the 1990s took over 100,000 photographs worldwide—from France to New York City to Chicago and dozens of other countries—and yet showed the results to no one. The photos are amazing both for the breadth of the work and for the high quality of the humorous, moving, beautiful, and raw images of all facets of city life in America’s post-war golden age. It wasn’t until local historian John Maloof purchased a box of Maier’s negatives from a Chicago auction house and began collecting and championing her marvelous work just a few years ago that any of it saw the light of day. Presented here for the first time in print, Vivian Maier: Street Photographer collects the best of her incredible, unseen body of work.
Two African American men from poor, rural Mississippi wrongfully convicted for crimes they didn't commit. Lost years of their lives spent in jail and finally released a decade a half later thanks to the Innocence Project and DNA testing. This is their life for all to see. In the early 1990s in a small disadvantaged community in rural Mississippi, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer were wrongfully convicted in separate trials of capital murder. Brooks, despite an alibi, was sentenced to life and was imprisoned for 18 years. A few years later Brewer was convicted and sentenced to death. He was incarcerated for 15. In 2008 the Innocence Project in New York exonerated both men. Vanessa Potkin, longtime attorney at the Innocence Project, along with co-founder of the Innocence Project, Peter Neufeld, spent years investigating the two cases, and discovered a link between them that subsequent DNA testing substantiated. The results of that testing led authorities to the real perpetrator who was responsible for both murders and then to the exonerations of Brooks and Brewer. Without the work of the Innocence Project, Potkin, Neufeld, and a host of others, these photographs-of lives lost, forgotten, and then regained-would not have been possible. The photographs' poignance is made all the more powerful as one contemplates their stark, deeply felt beauty against the haunting realization that they were almost never able to be made or seen at all. The evidence against Brooks and Brewer consisted primarily of bite mark matching evidence. A prosecution expert testified that in both cases multiple bite marks covered the victims' bodies and matched the defendants' teeth impressions. A group of experts retained by the Innocence Project later determined that the marks were not bite marks at all. As a forensic discipline, bite mark matching has come under serious criticism in recent years and led to the exoneration of multiple other prisoners. This same prosecution expert testified not only in Brooks's and Brewer's cases, but a host of others in Mississippi and the region. The extent of the damage is still unknown. In 2012, photographer Isabelle Armand came across an article about these two cases. Such a scenario seemed unbelievable. How, why, and where could this happen? How does one cope with wrongful conviction? For the next five years, she spent several weeks each year documenting Brooks, Brewer, their families and their environment. This intimate photographic essay, akin to looking in a mirror, puts faces on the victims of wrongful convictions. It seeks to raise consciousness, challenge popular perceptions about poverty and inequality in our criminal justice system, and demands that we confront these critical issues.
New York City's largest and oldest industrial facility, thehistoric Brooklyn Navy Yard occupies 250-acres on the EastRiver between the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges, andis presently one of New York City's major industrial sites. Oneof the last remnants of Brooklyn's industrial supremacy, theYard has experienced tremendous change: functioning from theage of wind to that of diesel. As a cradle of naval evolution,the Yard has had to reinvent itself constantly, and this is madeevident by the presence of buildings and structures spanningfrom the 1830s to the 1950s. The Navy Yard was shut downin 1966 and reopened again in 1971 when the City of NewYork bought it with the intention of redevelopment. Great shipsare still repaired there, and the Yard, now an industrial parkwith a variety of manufacturers and light industries, functionsas a refuge from a city that has mostly forgotten that a mixedeconomy is a key to its survival. The Brooklyn Navy Yard, the first monograph by JohnBartelstone, offers a quiet and striking look at the Yard asa time capsule of industrial New York. The Yard today is afusion of the sublime and the practical, with eerie abandonedelements existing side by side with vibrant businesses.Bartelstone's camera is partial to the former. The imagesshow a place out of time, where World War II New York is stillpalpable. Bartelstone has been photographing the buildingsand structures of the Yard since 1994. His photographs areneither a history of the Navy Yard nor a depiction of its role asa modern industrial park; the book instead offers a structuredimpression of a dreamscape.
For the past decade, downtown-New York indie dance music innovation could be summed up in three letters: LCD. The brainchild of frontman James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem grew from a solo project into one of the most highly regarded live bands in contemporary music. In 2011, at the height of their career, LCD Soundsystem decided to end the band. From 2004 to the day they quit, photographer Ruvan Wijesooriya navigated through both private and public moments with the influential, Grammy-nominated, NYC indie band. Ruvan was a fan, first and foremost, and quickly became a fly on the wall and instigator who brought new meaning to the term, "I'm with the band." His access and friendship with LCD is something rare in the commercialized and controlled music industry of today, and this close relationship can be seen in the rapport between photographer and subject. The locations include Hyde Park in London, various New York institutions, Coachella, Rick Rubin's recording mansion in the Hollywood Hills, Way Out West festival in Sweden, Miami Art Basel and more. In addition, the scope of the book goes beyond just photography and features various album art and original interviews with members of the band and showcases an exciting design by James Timmins, art director of Dossier magazine. A handful of these photographs were featured in the recent LCD film, Shut Up And Play The Hits, and others have appeared in Rolling Stone, Spin, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker, but the vast majority have never been shown before, making this the ultimate must-have for every fan to remember the band. "All of Ruvan's pictures remind me of that feeling: that you're geographically fucked, and its all happening right now, somewhere else, without you. There's an enormous amount of intimacy in them, and promise, and intrusion..." -James Murphy, LCD bandleader
