Eminent Domain

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More About

• Zoe Leonard
• Ethan Levitas
• Bettina Johae
• Fine Art Photography
• Public Transportation

This group photography show, typically well presented in the main library's soaring exhibition hall, focuses on New York City's ragged edges. Bettina Johae rode a bike around the outskirts of each borough, capturing images such as weathered asphalt abutting the rivers and street reflectors at weedy dead ends. Her carefully composed scenes are presented alongside maps that pinpoint their locations throughout the city. Zoe Leonard finds a more psychological desolation in her shots of building façades enervated by hand-lettered signs and graffiti, and a fabric store with rumpled bolts of cloth heaped against dirty windows. Ethan Levitas's rectangular photographs of subway cars on elevated lines limn changing seasonal light on rusty steel while framing the passengers' private reveries within public spaces. This is Gotham without glitz or wealth, poignant in its quotidian splendor.
Mondays-Sundays, 10 a.m. Starts: May 2. Continues through Aug. 29, 2008