Edited by Ralph Goertz. Text by Joel Meyerowitz, Jörg Sasse, Ralph Goertz.
Alongside William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld and Mitch Epstein, New York–born and bred Joel Meyerowitz is one of the most important representatives of the New Color Photography movement of the 1960s and 70s. This retrospective traces his entire oeuvre, from his street photography to his light experimentations made during "the blue hour" in Cape Cod, and includes famous series such as Cape Light, After September 11: Images from Ground Zero, Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks, in addition to the artist's much-loved early work—his first trip to Europe in 1967, and his concurrent transition from black and white to color—which has been much less widely published. Though Meyerowitz admired Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, and shares their uncanny ability to grasp a human being on the street as both an individual and a representative of a larger social context, his handling of space and composition consciously differs from that of his idols, his framing less synchronized, the moments he captures, interestingly, less perfect. This square hardback volume compiles the artist's iconic images, and is an essential addition to any photography book collection.
Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938) is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in over 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the world. The New York native began photographing the streets in 1962 and by the mid-60s became an early advocate of color photography who was instrumental in transforming a general resistance to color film into an almost universal acceptance.
"New York City" (1974) is reproduced from Joel Meyerowitz: Retrospective.
At last, a true retrospective monograph on the great American street photographer, Joel Meyerowitz. Not a single image in this book is less than great. "I worked from a kind of innocence at the beginning to a degree of knowingness now," Meyerowitz is quoted. "And along the way photography has taught me many things. I feel that I've been a servant to photography and it's given me back whatever I could understand from its gifts and demands. One of the very first things I learned working on the street was that when the moment arrives you simply make a picture of the moment, and often the frame itself isn't perfect. It's not a Cartier-Bresson, classically organized frame. It's got a different kind of energy in it. Perhaps it's closer, or bolder, it's more about the first connection between whatever is going on and you as the artist. I was struggling at that time to learn how to be in the moment. How close to get to somebody, how do I understand the significance of the moment?" Featured image is "New York City" (1962). continue to blog
"I think all the stuff on the street is a gift. But you only get it if you go out there every day. You have to be there to see it, you have to read the content of the street. I think it's rich with potential meaning, and with the light changing every minute, that, too, changes the meaning of what you read. I am always looking to make a photograph of something nearby, and something far away, at the same time. For me, that 's what so exquisite about being out on the street, that it's throwing all this content at me all day long, and I am trying to see what can I do with all this loose information, how can I put a frame around it to make it somehow astonishing, while actually it is just ordinary life?" Featured image ("New York City, 1975) and excerpt are reproduced from Joel Meyerowitz: Retrospective. continue to blog
"The moment is everything to me! And it can happen anywhere; when I'm working on the street and there's a flash of instantaneous recognition, or when I'm standing in a physical space while the light is changing. If the moment doesn't enter me, penetrate me, and move me, I can't make a photograph. It has to have a visual component, where I feel the necessity of it. It's like I'm stabbed by the recognition, it is so precise and it enters so deeply, that I am its victim, a willing victim of this moment of transformation. Because what is art really? Art is ordinary life transformed through the medium of a human being, who experiences some momentary connection to it. And it's in that connection that art is formed. And so I walk around the world, waiting for something to penetrate my natural resistance and open me up. I seek this particular characteristic of openness to things. I don't want to merely make another good photograph, I want to have another experience of life being so thrillingly perceived that I am helpless in front of it, and I just say yes to it. In some ways I have always felt that photography was an optimistic art form. Because every time you press the button you say yes!" New York City (1978) is reproduced from the essential overview, Joel Meyerowitz: Retrospective. For information about Aperture's forthcoming new edition of Cape Light, continue to the book page. continue to blog
Widely considered one of the greatest living American street photographers, Joel Meyerowitz is equally revered for his landscapes and portraits. Featured image, "Sarah, Cape Cod, Massachusetts" (1981) is reproduced from our essential overview, Joel Meyerowitz: Retrospective, in which Ralph Goertz writes, "Meyerowitz is inexhaustible, he is a possessed person, and justifiably belongs to the great exponents of the New Color Photography. His sensitivity, and the questions he asks about photography make him one of the most significant photographers in art history." We are proud to have published this essential overview together with Walther König, and equally pleased to announce Aperture's forthcoming new edition of the classic photobook, Joel Meyerowitz: Cape Light, a key title on our Fall 2015 list.
continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 8 x 8 in. / 204 pgs / 180 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $59.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $79 ISBN: 9781938922701 PUBLISHER: D.A.P./Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König AVAILABLE: 2/24/2015 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA
Published by D.A.P./Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König. Edited by Ralph Goertz. Text by Joel Meyerowitz, Jörg Sasse, Ralph Goertz.
Alongside William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld and Mitch Epstein, New York–born and bred Joel Meyerowitz is one of the most important representatives of the New Color Photography movement of the 1960s and 70s. This retrospective traces his entire oeuvre, from his street photography to his light experimentations made during "the blue hour" in Cape Cod, and includes famous series such as Cape Light, After September 11: Images from Ground Zero, Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks, in addition to the artist's much-loved early work—his first trip to Europe in 1967, and his concurrent transition from black and white to color—which has been much less widely published. Though Meyerowitz admired Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, and shares their uncanny ability to grasp a human being on the street as both an individual and a representative of a larger social context, his handling of space and composition consciously differs from that of his idols, his framing less synchronized, the moments he captures, interestingly, less perfect. This square hardback volume compiles the artist's iconic images, and is an essential addition to any photography book collection.
Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938) is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in over 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the world. The New York native began photographing the streets in 1962 and by the mid-60s became an early advocate of color photography who was instrumental in transforming a general resistance to color film into an almost universal acceptance.
