Soho Photo Gllery
Soho Photo Gallery is pleased to announce that Meryl Meisler is December’s guest exhibitor. Her show is entitled, Here I Am: Bushwick in the 1980s. When Meisler began teaching art in Bushwick in the early 1980s, she wondered, “Was the other art teacher killed?” Meisler explains, “Bushwick resembled a ghost town war zone. Scorched and seemingly forgotten since the !77 blackout, Bushwick hit the skids. To me,
Bushwick!s natural light was beautiful; kids were kids, vacant buildings whispered: Here I am, take my picture before I collapse. Using a plastic point and shoot and color slide film, I photographed walking from subway to school, through classroom windows, and back again. The images I!m showing, many forgotten in boxes for nearly 30 years, are a wink, quick sketches of the neighborhood!s people and places during a
disparate decade. Revisiting Bushwick, I feel like Jimmy Stewart!s character George Bailey coming home to Pottersville in "It's a Wonderful Life.! There!s been a paradigm shift.”
