Avant Gallery is pleased to present the work of legendary photographer and filmmaker Richard Sandler. The exhibition “Richard Sandler: The Eyes of the City” includes over 40
photographs produced in the imperiled technique of silver gelatin. The show will open on May 18, 2023 at Avant Gallery New York City at Hudson Yards and run through July 16th.
Sandler’s work is imbued with a captivating sense of nostalgia that is somehow also timeless, emphasized through the technique of silver gelatin printing, a method that is nearly extinct. Known for his street photography capturing the energy of New York City between the 70s and 90s, Sandler’s body of work highlights both the beauty and grit of everyday life, often set in the lifeblood of New York: the subway. Sandler has described himself as a “hardcore street documentarian [whose] path was, and is, to ‘take the pulse’ of the city and offer something of a diagnosis in pictures.” Lauded by Time Magazine as the “Unsung Street Photographer of 1980s New York,” Sandler has a remarkable affinity for immortalizing intimate moments
amid the bustling city.
Elements such a subway poles and cracked windows frame serendipitous moments, transforming scenes of mundanity into poetic oeuvres; for example, Subway Kiss, NYC, 1987 offers a visual journey despite being a static scene—the eye first moves to the seated men in the foreground, but then travels to the background where a cracked window creates a vignette for a kissing couple.
Sandler’s work also plays with a sense of voyeurism and perspective. In some photographs, we feel as if we are intruding; in RR Train, NYC, 1982, a woman reaches out her arm, attempting to shield the faces of the sleeping children from the camera’s lens. In other works, such as CC Train, 1985, the subject seems to warily eye the photographer from behind the pole, while fellow subway-riders glance towards the camera as well, observing Sandler himself. Looking at Sandler’s photography, we find our curiosity for an untold story awakened.
The artist will be in attendance for the opening reception for “Richard Sandler: The Eyes of the City” taking place at Avant Gallery at Hudson Yards on Thursday, May 18, 6pm-9pm.
About Richard Sandler
Richard Sandler is a street photographer and documentary filmmaker. He has directed and shot eight non-fiction films, including “The Gods of Times Square,” “Brave New York” and “Radioactive City.” Sandler’s still photographs are in the permanent collections of Brooklyn Museum, Center for Creative Photography – University of Arizona, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Museum of the City of New York, New York Historical Society, New York Public Library. He was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship for photography, a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship for Filmmaking, and a New York State Council on the Arts fellowship for Filmmaking.
