Foreword by Luc Sante. Text by David Godlis. Afterword by Chris Stein.
David Godlis captures the grit and grandeur of 1970s-'80s New York City in his street photography
A New York Times critics' pick | Best Art Books 2020
When he is on the street armed with his camera, photographer David Godlis (born 1951) describes himself as “a gunslinger and a guitar picker all in one.” Ever since he bought his first 35mm camera in 1970, Godlis has made it his mission to capture the world on film just as it appears to him in reality.
Godlis is most famous for his images of the city’s punk scene and serving as the unofficial official photographer for the Film Society of Lincoln Center. For 40 years, his practice has also consisted of walking around the streets of New York City and shooting whatever catches his eye: midnight diner patrons, stoop loiterers, commuters en route to the nearest subway station. With an acute sense of both humor and pathos, Godlis frames everyday events in a truly arresting manner.
This publication presents Godlis’ best street photography from the 1970s and ’80s in a succinct celebration of New York’s past. The book is introduced by an essay written by cultural critic Luc Sante and closes with an afterword written by Blondie cofounder and guitarist Chris Stein.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Godlis Streets.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Guardian
Sarah Gilbert
The veteran street photographer GODLIS has been capturing the anarchy and humour of everyday life in New York City since the 1970s. A new book, Godlis Streets, published by Reel Art Press, is dedicated to his work over two decades.
Creative Review
Aimee McLaughlin
A new photo book is celebrating the photographer’s insightful imagery of Boston and New York in the 70s and 80s, and his mission to ‘conquer the streets’
New York Times
Holland Cotter
Late in a year that has seen New York City simultaneously surviving a pandemic and an emptying-out come two blast-from-the-past photography books that take the distressed city as a subject. [F]rom Reel Art Press come[s] pictures of the recession-tattered Manhattan of the 1970s and ’80s by the vigilant street photographer David Godlis. Mr. Godlis’s [photos are] mostly of people...the New York [he] captured is gone, just as surely as the one we knew at the beginning of 2020.
Photo Eye
Jason Eskenazi
I miss those sarcophagus-like telephone booths. There's nothing like the snap, crackle, and pop (if u are using a flash) to freeze the past, thaw it out years later, and savor what was and how we were once upon a time. It's endlessly fascinating, like watching new reels of people walking in the city, crossing the horse-drawn streets, circa 1900, who sometimes catch the movie camera lens in their eye.
Blind
Miss Rosen
Native New York Godlis celebrates his hometown in a new book documenting alternately humorous, surreal, and poignant scenes of everyday life
Thursday, November 19 at 5PM EST, Rizzoli Bookstore presents renowned photographer David Godlis in conversation with contributors Luc Sante and Chris Stein for the online book launch of Godlis Streets. The event will be moderated by Reel Art Press editor Dave Brolan on Zoom. Please register here. continue to blog
Featured photograph, captioned "Statue of Liberty, 1974," is reproduced from Godlis Streets, Reel Art Press's riveting new collection of 70s and 80s Boston and NYC street photography by David Godlis. Featuring texts by Godlis, Luc Sante and Chris Stein, this is seedy, stylish and celebratory old-school time travel at its best. "Godlis’s pictures show people uneasily enacting half-forgotten rituals, wearing vestigial dress-up clothes and timidly asserting spatial autonomy, in a city that seems to have been erected and abandoned by another, larger species," Sante writes. "Time moves haltingly, hesitantly, and seems to loop back on itself even as it draws inexorably toward death.… The subjects who notice his camera are wary at best, wondering whether he is a spy, or perhaps harvesting their souls, or maybe they wish he’d been there to take their pictures when they still looked good and the world made sense." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 7.75 x 9.5 in. / 160 pgs / 100 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $39.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $55.95 ISBN: 9781909526730 PUBLISHER: Reel Art Press AVAILABLE: 11/17/2020 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AFR ME
Published by Reel Art Press. Foreword by Luc Sante. Text by David Godlis. Afterword by Chris Stein.
David Godlis captures the grit and grandeur of 1970s-'80s New York City in his street photography
A New York Times critics' pick | Best Art Books 2020
When he is on the street armed with his camera, photographer David Godlis (born 1951) describes himself as “a gunslinger and a guitar picker all in one.” Ever since he bought his first 35mm camera in 1970, Godlis has made it his mission to capture the world on film just as it appears to him in reality.
Godlis is most famous for his images of the city’s punk scene and serving as the unofficial official photographer for the Film Society of Lincoln Center. For 40 years, his practice has also consisted of walking around the streets of New York City and shooting whatever catches his eye: midnight diner patrons, stoop loiterers, commuters en route to the nearest subway station. With an acute sense of both humor and pathos, Godlis frames everyday events in a truly arresting manner.
This publication presents Godlis’ best street photography from the 1970s and ’80s in a succinct celebration of New York’s past. The book is introduced by an essay written by cultural critic Luc Sante and closes with an afterword written by Blondie cofounder and guitarist Chris Stein.
