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New York Changing: Revisiting Berenice Abbott's New York
Lecture by Douglas Levere
6pm, Tuesday, February 3, 2004
at the Arts Club of Chicago
American photographer Berenice Abbott's renowned Changing New York project of the late 1930's created an historic photographic-documentation of Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs. Since 1997, photographer Douglas Levere has been returning to the original sites, with the identical camera, an 8x10 Century Universal, at the same time of day and year, to show New York City's evolution over the past sixty-five years. Levere will discuss his project and present his contemporary photographs juxtaposed with Abbott's original images. He will explain the work's origins and influences as well as the process of creating this document. Painters, architects, musicians, writers, and photographers have always referenced what has come before them to create new bodies of work. For Levere to completely embrace Abbott's Changing New York project by rephotographing it gives him the opportunity to speak through Abbott's voice to strengthen his own.
Henry Street, Manhattan, 1935 and 1998
Douglas Levere was educated at the University of Buffalo in design studies and has been working as a commercial photographer in New York City for the last thirteen years. He has photographed covers for Newsweek, Business Week, and other business magazines and works regularly for Forbes, TV Guide, and People, among others. His book, New York Changing: Revisiting Berenice Abbott's New York, will be published by Princeton Architectural Press in fall 2004 with Graham Foundation support. See www.nychanging.com for more information on this project.
Copies of the video Changing New York will be available for purchase following the lecture.