I have a few pieces in a group show at the Alice Austen house in Staten Island opening this Saturday.
Alice
Austen’s groundbreaking portfolio “Street Types of New York” from 1894, marks
her as one of the earliest female street photographers who captured the
changing face of the city’s working class just before the turn of the
century. Today a new generation of photographers continues her legacy of
documenting the ever-changing city. This exhibition includes work by: Alice Austen,Chris Arnade , Alice Attie, Dmitry Gudkov, Peter Funch, Andy Jones, Wayne Lawrence,Erica McDonald, Greg Miller, Christina Paige, Susannah Ray, Richard Renaldi, Ruddy Roye, Geordie Wood, and AnRong Xu.
The
New Street Types draws connections from early street portraiture like that of
Alice Austen (1866-1952) to contemporary image-makers. The artists selected for
the exhibition work in a similar style to Austen, often employing large format
photography to create portraits of New York City’s diverse communities and
subcultures – including the outer fringes of the expanding city like the
Rockaways and Orchard Beach. Some of the artists conceptualize themes in
portrait typologies and use social media to communicate online, while artists
like Peter Funch take the traditional street portrait a step further, creating
digital tableaus to capture life on the streets and see it anew. Photographer
Ruddy Roye utilizes Instagram to create his images - sharing them in a
spontaneous and wide-reaching way Austen could have never imagined.
