In SideWalk, American photographer Jeff Mermelstein takes visitors back to the 1990s, and 2000s, with his fleeting, charming, bizarre, and vivid snapshots of life in New York City, where he has lived and worked most of his life. Prowling the streets with a constantly drawn camera and an alert eye, Mermelstein documented the mood, the characters and the often-bizarre sights that made the city so unique. Everyday situations and ordinary people are the primary focus of his work. His idiosyncratic images are never composed, and are instead spontaneous records of unaware people going about their everyday lives.
The results are eccentric and often absurd: an inconspicuous man wearing a dark blue rain jacket and spectacles who appears to devour a well-thumbed book; a suited-and-booted youngster walking the streets with a tamed monkey on his shoulder, or instead a proud little Chihuahua standing triumphantly on bundled stacks of newspapers. A selection of these original images are now on view at the Cologne-based Galerie Bene Taschen.
Jeff Mermelstein, SideWalk
December 6, 2017 to February 17, 2018
Galerie Bene Taschen
Moltkestraße 81
50674 Cologne
www.benetaschen.com
