on view: May 17 - June 15, 2002
Opening Reception: May 17, 6-9pm

LOCAL EYES:
Folk Photographers Documenting Brooklyn

This exhibition of over seventy images of vernacular photography is part of theBrooklyn Arts Council’s Folk Arts program sponsored by Con Edison. Funded by New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) it highlights ten Brooklyn photographers who document people and events within their communities.

Practically from the time it was invented in the early nineteenth century, photography has been a people’s medium for recording and preserving the rituals and traditions of family and community life. Once it became a cheap source of documentation, the camera gave rise to a kind of folk photography.

Although we tend to see folk photography as anonymous and historical –pictures taken by long dead and unknown photographers whose works we discover in archives or old albums –the aim of LOCAL EYES is to name and celebrate artists engaged in the current practice of making pictures that record the artful or everyday aspects of their communities. What these Brooklyn photographers reveal is an intimacy and familiarity: an insider’s view. Among those featured in LOCAL EYES are Anthony Bonair, originally from Trinidad, who has documented the West Indian American Day Carnival parade for twenty five years; Irving Herzberg, who documented daily life in the Williamsburg Hasidic community for over a decade; Luis Rodriguez, an artist who has taken pictures of his Borough Park neighborhood since he was a teenager; and St. Johns Place resident William DeMeritte, who, for the last three years, has documented the ups and downs, events and affairs of five myles and its neighbors.

The exhibit also features works by Helen Marrero, Mel Gerson, Anders Goldfarb, John Huang, Cliff Matias, and Angie Picolo.

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.