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A Beautiful Catastrophe

Name: A Beautiful Catastrophe
Author: Bruce Gilden
ISBN: 9781576872383

by Bruce Gilden

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Overview

New York City, the unique metropolis that Le Corbusier has called “a beautiful catastrophe,” is a natural home to Bruce Gilden. Since 1981, Gilden has been roaming the streets of the city, capturing its characters and eccentricities with his confrontational, highly energetic style and exuberant vision. In his new opus, A Beautiful Catastrophe, Magnum photographer Bruce Gilden celebrates a trademark style with abandon, firmly ensconcing him in the pantheon of New York City street poets.

86 tritone photographs.

About the Author, Bruce Gilden

Bruce Gilden, born in Brooklyn in 1946, attended Penn State University and took courses at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. A self-taught photographer, Gilden began to exhibit his photographic work in galleries as early as 1971 when he had his first one-man show. His photographs have been widely exhibited in museums and galleries all over the world and are included in many permanent collections, including MoMA and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; La Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; the Royal Photographic Society, Bath, England; and the National Gallery of Canada. In 2000, Bruce Gilden won his second New York Foundation for the Arts grant. In addition, Bruce Gilden was awarded a Japan Foundation Fellowship in 1999, the European Publishers Award for Photography in 1996, and a French Villa Medicis Hors-les-Murs grant in 1995. On three occasions he has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts photographer’s fellowship. His previous books include Coney Island (Trebruk, 2002), Go (Trebruk, 2002), After the Off (Dewi Lewis, 1999), Haiti (Dewi Lewis, 1997), and Facing New York (Cornerhouse, 1993). Bruce Gilden is a member of the legendary agency, Magnum Photos. He lives in New York City with his wife, Sophie, and daughter, Nina.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Of the many bibliographic celebrations of New York, Gilden's is among the deftest at underscoring the magnetism and ambivalent appeal of the city Le Corbusier dubbed "a beautiful catastrophe." A member of the famed Magnum Photos agency, Gilden (Haiti; Facing New York) has walked the city's streets and captured images of its inhabitants in ways reminiscent of Weegee and Diane Arbus. The book's matte pages, block-lettered quotes, and tritone, bled-to-the-edge imagery collectively enhance the sense of hard-edge austerity associated with New York. Gilden has set aside the heartwarming humanity that might have been communicated through color and causes us to focus on the light, the shadows, the psychological intensity of urban life, and the human microcosms within it. A masterly combination of photographs and quotes shows how this international center, comprising polarized fortunes and imminent danger, is inhabited and longingly regarded by people who would never have it any other way. A work of art unto itself; highly recommended for collections focusing on urban culture and photography.-Savannah Schroll, formerly with Smithsonian Institution Libs. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.