London Street Photography in NYC
London and New York have long been linked in culture and society. Leaders in art, finance, business and even politics, the two cities are the archetypes of modern urbanism. Connected both by history and pluralistic kinship, London and NYC are two world epicenters existing as an inseparable pair in rivalry and brotherhood. It is no surprise that many artistic endeavors attempt to showcase the two together. Just look at the recent “Telectroscope” art instillation that projected a live video feed of people standing in front of duel oversized telescopes; one in Brooklyn Bridge Park and the other in London’s South Bank. The attempt of the project to connect the two cities 3,500 miles apart was a huge hit. It helped the two communities visually communicate through technology and art (and as expected, offered many funny moments of cheeky hijinx). More info.
This month a London Photography exhibit has come to New York. The Museum of the City of New York is showing: London Street Photography from now until December. Alongside this 150 year survey of London street photography is a companion show, City Scenes: Highlights of New York Street Photography. Both are fantastic collections, and side by side they vividly compare how each city lived and reacted to the last century and a half, together and separately. Check it out. From the Museum:
London Street Photography features images by over 70 photographers who have recorded fleeting moments in London, capturing the faces and lives of ordinary people who populate this complicated and ever-changing metropolis. The exhibition, organized by the Museum of London, where it brought in record crowds, features work by such notables as John Thomson, Moholy-Nagy, George Rodger, Bert Hardy, Roger Mayne, and Nick Turpin, as well as by countless anonymous photographers whose contributions have been just as important in recording the city. Through more than 150 striking images, London Street Photography traces two compelling histories: the development of the practice, aesthetics, and technology of street photography the course of a century and a half, and the simultaneous growth of a modern city.
The photographs capture the change from Victorian city of pushcarts to the multicultural city of immigrants in the 21st century; changing modes of transportation from horse and carriage to double-decker buses to stretch limousines; and a kaleidoscope of public places from markets to squares and neighborhoods of every type. The people depicted include the fashionable and the down-and-out, the immigrant and the street urchin, and people of every ethnicity, all linked by the implicitly democratic medium of photography.
A small companion installation organized by the Museum of the City of New York, City Scenes: Highlights of New York Street Photography, will provide a counterpart illustrating the rich tradition of street photography in New York City. City Scenes showcases 30 key works by New York photographers, including Jacob Riis, Berenice Abbott, Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, William Klein, Nan Goldin, and Joel Meyerowitz. Together, these selections highlight the similarities and differences of subject matter and style by practitioners working simultaneously thousands of miles apart in major western metropolitan cities.
The Museum of the City of New York is pleased to present London Street Photography to coincide with the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games. The exhibition is organized by the Museum of London.