Read more
A Language of New York explores what it means to be a New Yorker, in public and private. In 1995 Mitch Epstein began making pictures in the city, as it underwent a seismic cultural and physical shift. The gritty neighborhoods and sassy unself-consciousness of the 1970s, when Epstein had first moved to New York, were disappearing. Signs of the future were encroaching: surveillance cameras, the normalization of gun violence as a virtual reality game in Times Square, and Disney's gentrification of the old theaters and strip clubs on 42nd Street. Epstein wanted to photograph New York in this strange liminal space, between past and future. A year into the project, he began making black-and-white portraits of his inner circle in their homes or workspaces as an intimate counterpoint to his color photographs of street life. A Language of New York examines the city's recurrent self-cannibalizing into a new upcycled landscape, and the urban relationship between public and private. Both gimlet-eyed inquiry and loving homage, it describes an incredibly resilient city prone to cooperation, protest, consumerism, and creativity in the extremes.
About the author
Mitch Epstein has photographed the landscape and psyche of America for half a century. A pioneer of 1970s color photography, Epstein was inducted into the National Academy of Design and awarded the Prix Pictet, Berlin Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work has been shown and collected by museums worldwide, including the Tate Modern in London and New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2013 the Walker Art Center commissioned and premiered a theatrical rendition of Epstein’s “American Power” series. His books include American Power (2011), New York Arbor (2013), Property Rights (2021), Silver + Chrome (2022) and Recreation (2022), all published by Steidl. Epstein has also worked in film as director of Dad (2004), and production designer and co-producer for Salaam Bombay! (1988) and Mississippi Masala (1991).
Summary
A Language of New York explores what it means to be a New Yorker, in public and private. In 1995 Mitch Epstein began making pictures in the city, as it underwent a seismic cultural and physical shift. The gritty neighborhoods and sassy unself-consciousness of the 1970s, when Epstein had first moved to New York, were disappearing. Signs of the future were encroaching: surveillance cameras, the normalization of gun violence as a virtual reality game in Times Square, and Disney’s gentrification of the old theaters and strip clubs on 42nd Street. Epstein wanted to photograph New York in this strange liminal space, between past and future. A year into the project, he began making black-and-white portraits of his inner circle in their homes or workspaces as an intimate counterpoint to his color photographs of street life. A Language of New York examines the city’s recurrent self-cannibalizing into a new upcycled landscape, and the urban relationship between public and private. Both gimlet-eyed inquiry and loving homage, it describes an incredibly resilient city prone to cooperation, protest, consumerism, and creativity in the extremes.
