About this Event
Join us on Saturday, January 17 for a conversation betwen Daniel Arnold and Jeff Mermelstein. The event marks the artists' recent titles, You Are What You Do (Loose Joints) and What If Jeff Were A Butterfly? (Void)
Rooted in a well-trodden lineage of New York street photography, Daniel Arnold’s work channels the chaos, chutzpah, humour and vitality that define the city, yet You Are What You Do reveals something more: a tenderness and empathy that courses through every frame. There are genuine moments of sadness and grief mixed with joy, alongside spontaneous, unscripted scenes of pure street cinema, blended with candid images from fashion shoots and film sets, all sitting effortlessly within Arnold’s generous visual language.
Working from a vast archive, this generous landscape-format monograph distills Arnold’s signature wry, tragicomic style into a spacious and classical book object. From the glamorous heights of high culture to the downtrodden and overlooked, You Are What You Do draws a wide, empathetic circle around New York’s characters and charm.
Jeff Mermelstein has spent decades photographing life on the streets of New York. In What If Jeff Were A Butterfly?, he turns the camera inward, beginning with flowers: perhaps the most photographed subject in history, and possibly the most avoided (for that very reason). From there, the work unfolds through pages of journals, family snapshots, phone notes, and previously unseen prints, drawn from an intimate investigation of Jeff’s archive and personal memorabilia. Together, they form a quiet portrait of attention, finding beauty in the everyday and meaning in the small things that make up a life.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
picturehouse + thesmalldarkroom, 437 West 16th Street, New York, United States
USD 0.00
