"THE FORMER NEW YORK"
Photographs From The 1980s
RICHARD SANDLER
EXHIBITION HELD OVER THROUGH JULY
Opening Reception – Thursday, May 6th, 6-8pm.
Sandler’s East Village documentary, "BRAVE NEW YORK"
( 55 min.-2004) will be screened at 8pm.The photographs in this show were made between 20 and 30 years ago and they depict a time that lives in limbo: they are too young to be the historical records of the fuzzy past, and way too old to resemble contemporary culture, now moving at warp speed.
The pictures of the recent past reveal a time just before the proliferation of computers, cell phones, i-pods, digital cameras and the internet; there was no hiding, no refuge in virtual space. For better and for worse one was simply “on the street,” in public space, bathing in the comforts, or terrors, of the human sea.
In the New York subways, graffiti tags and spray painting exploded onto every surface and whole subway cars were
“bombed,” windows and all. Above and below ground, crime and crack were on the rise, rents were still cheap, Times Square and the East Village were drug riddled, while in mid-town the rich wore furs in unprecedented numbers; Ronald Reagan was president, “greed was becoming good,” and Y2K hysteria approached.To some, the New York City of the recent past was a hell on Earth, yet to others, it was one of New York’s most fertile artistic periods.
I suggest that the meanings and motives of this 20-30 year period are not yet clear enough to articulate, and I offer these photographs as marbled evidence of beauty mixing with decay, and as questions about city culture itself.
- Richard Sandler
GALLERY HOURS
Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat Evenings 7pm-10.30pm
Sat 1pm-5pm & by appointment
