Central View of "Central Park"

books:

	• Central Park Aperture, 2002 - 128 pages average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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Central View of "Central Park"

Bruce Davidson's "Central Park" is a compelling look at one of the world's most unique urban places. Unlike "Brooklyn Gang" or "Portraits," Davidson shoots his subjects here with a wide-angle panoramic camera. The result is fascinating as the images meld odd angles, distorted bodies and expansive views, and at no point does it come across as cliched or gimmicky. Instead, the photographs are hopeful, intimate, and revealing. Davidson shows us some of the park's secret places, but mostly he has discovered, through his visual explorations, the secret of what makes Central Park an essential part of New York life.

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Bruce Davidson's photographs of Central Park reveal a humane, democratic haven of breathtaking beauty and ecological secrets, as well as a site for wondrous adventures.

Renowned as an intrepid explorer of the urban terrain, and a member of Magnum Photos, Bruce Davidson has challenged himself in a remarkable new way, taking on the visual and metaphorical scope of Central Park. This chronicler of the New York subway, the civil-rights movement, and of life in East Harlem finds himself-- as suddenly and surprisingly as Alice in Wonderland (who appears in one of his more humorous photographs)-- in his city's verdant oasis. Davidson's photographic approach to the park's wildlife-- human and otherwise-- varies as much in format (panoramic, 35mm, and square) as it does in emotional quality. Always compassionate, often idiosyncratic, this work reveals a sublime and at times transcendent vision. Davidson seems as comfortable with a wedding, a landscape, or a roller-blader as he does with Central Park's more permanent residents-- a newborn bird, or a man seeking refuge on a cold winter's night.... Here, Davidson intuitively discovers a multiplicity of mysteries, eccentricities, and characters that together reflect the vibrant and complex city of which the park is the heart and soul. At the same time, Bruce Davidson's Central Park becomes a metaphor for a larger human experience.

Davidson's evocative rendering of Central Park is consistent with the vision of its original designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner Calvert Vaux. Created to serve all classes of society, it was the country's first municipal park conceived by urban reformers and built by immigrant labor. Now, as then, it provides green space for people from all walks of life and all countries of the world. Today, Central Park represents six percent of Manhattan's total acreage and is the most frequently visited park in the country.

Complemented by an essay by the author, journalist, and translator Marie Winn, a preface by writer and Central Park Conservancy Director Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, and Davidson's own anecdotal reflections, Central Park provides an expansive view of this wonderfully intricate and varied space.

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