Bruce Davidson'' SUBWAY'' Exhibition and Book @ Aperture Foundation

Subway, by Bruce Davidson (Aperture and Magnum Photos 2011)

Subway, by Bruce Davidson (Aperture and Magnum Photos 2011)

Subway, by Bruce Davidson (Aperture and Magnum Photos 2011)

Bruce Davidson - SUBWAY

This is by far one of the best, if not the best Exhibition/Book of 2011.

I highly recommend you go to and see it in person. If not, at least  to purchase the already third edition of the always popular and a classic Subway book.  Extra Big Kudos to Aperture Foundation for '' Bringing Back Home'' sort of speak by making it happen this time,  with a more '' American'', '' New York'' and most anything, ''Urban''  exhibition theme that sort of resonates quite well with the current economic times and anxieties that we are experiencing now instead of, looking overseas for something more superfluous , pretty and vapid theme. The exhibition is very well curated and showcases the most iconic images of the Subway series. The book is the perfect souvenir for  you take home and  as  memento of such a powerful exhibition. I highly recommend you to buy the Subway book!

For the ones who did not lived (or were not even born) during the seventies- early eighties in NYC, when the criminals and gangs terrorized the subway system 24/7 in a already bankrupt city, thanks to the risky efforts of photographer Bruce Davidson, we can get a glimpse at this mesmerizing time capsule created with the wonderful color saturated, informative and timeless  photographs and a book that is just as consistent in content.

I personally find this documentary/ street photography exhibition and book is highly inspirational,  extremely well documented and  a very important highlight of a city at a time of financial crisis .Bruce Davidson is one of my most favorite photographers of all time and a true inspiration for my own personal photography work.

We can now look back at that time and reflect what we are experiencing now and sort of foresee what will emerge again if, our current economic climate keeps escalating.

GO AND SEE IT!
www.aperture.org

Press Preview with Davidson: Monday, October 3, 10:00-11:00 am

Exhibition on view: Monday, October 3-Saturday, October 29, 2011

Public Reception: Thursday, October 15, 6:00-8:00 pm

Artist Talk and Book Signing: Wednesday, October 26, 6:30 pm

Aperture Foundation is pleased to announce the highly anticipated re-release of Bruce

Davidson’s iconic Subway (September, 2011)—a groundbreaking series documenting a unique

moment in the cultural fabric of New York City, coinciding with an exhibition on view at

Aperture Gallery. First published in 1986, Davidson’s classic series has since garnered critical

acclaim for its phenomenal use of extremes of color and shadow set against flash-lit skin. In the

artist’s own words, “People in the subway, their flesh juxtaposed against the graffiti, the

penetrating effect of the strobe light itself, and even the hollow darkness of the tunnels, inspired

an aesthetic that goes unnoticed by passengers who are trapped underground, hiding behind

masks, and closed off from each other.”

In this third edition, a sequence of 118 images (including twenty-five never-before-published

photographs) moves the viewer through a landscape sometimes menacing, at other times lyrical,

soulful, and satiric. The images include the full panoply of New Yorkers—from weary

straphangers and languorous ladies in summer dresses to stalking predators and the homeless.

Davidson’s accompanying text tells the story behind the images, clarifying his method and

dramatizing his experience. He details his obsession with the subway, its rhythms, and its

particular madness. His naked prose, together with his compelling images, evoke the speeding

sensation of a subway car, tunneling out of the darkness into new light and unmistakable beauty.

Includes an introduction by Fred Braithewaite (Fab 5 Freddy) and an afterword by Henry

Geldzahler.

BRUCE DAVIDSON (born in Oak Park, Illinois, 1933) is considered one of America’s most

influential documentary photographers. He began taking photographs when he was ten, and

studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Yale University School of Design. In

1958 he became a member of Magnum Photos, and in 1961, he received a Guggenheim

Fellowship to document the civil rights movement. After a solo exhibition at New York’s

Museum of Modern Art in 1966, followed by a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1967,

Davidson spent two years photographing in East Harlem, resulting in East 100th Street. In 1980,

after living in New York City for twenty-three years, Davidson began his startling color essay of

urban life in Subway. He received a second National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1980

and an Open Society Institute Individual Fellowship in 1998. His work has been shown at the

International Center of Photography, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum

Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Museé Réattu,

Arles, France; Burden Gallery (Aperture), New York; Parco Gallery, Tokyo; and the New York

Historical Society. Davidson is also this year’s 2011 Aperture Benefit and Auction honoree,

which will take place on October 17th.

11 x 11 in.

(29.5 x 29 cm)

144 pages, 118 four-color images

Hardcover with jacket

ISBN 978-1-59711-194-2

$65.00

Aperture—located in New York’s Chelsea art district—is a world-renowned non-profit

publisher and exhibition space dedicated to promoting photography in all its forms. Aperture

was founded in 1952 by photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Barbara Morgan, and

Minor White; historian Beaumont Newhall; and writer/curator Nancy Newhall, among others.

These visionaries created a new quarterly periodical, Aperture magazine, to foster both the

development and the appreciation of the photographic medium and its practitioners. In the

comprise one of the most comprehensive and innovative libraries in the history of

photography and art. Aperture’s programs now include artist lectures and panel discussions,

limited-edition photographs, and traveling exhibitions that show at major museums and arts

institutions in the U.S. and internationally.