An evocative chronicle of the Lower East Side’s halcyon days, from Giovan’s archives
In 1984, Tria Giovan moved to a tenement building on Clinton Street on New York City’s Lower East Side. She wandered the streets photographing as if in a foreign land. Loisaida— as it is known to some—was as gritty, authentic and humble as it was exotic, vibrant and colorful. The melding cultures and humanity she encountered inspired these photographs. Giovan left the neighborhood and the work behind in 1990 without ever editing or producing the majority of the photographs. The negatives languished until the pandemic. Tria Giovan: Loisaida New York Street Work 1984–1990 is a time capsule, a cultural and historical record of a 1980s Lower East Side that fostered robust communities of diverse populations, including the many immigrants who took pride in making Loisaida their home. Her images invite curiosity and evoke nostalgia about a place in a bygone era that has been forever altered through waves of gentrification. Part preservation, part humanistic engagement, this project contributes to a historical visual legacy of the ever-evolving, always evocative Lower East Side. Tria Giovan (born 1961) is the author of Cuba: The Elusive Island (1996), Sand Sea Sky: The Beaches of Sagaponack (2012) and The Cuba Archive (2017). Exhibited in the US and internationally, her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Library of Congress, the Parrish Art Museum, the Jewish Museum, the Museum of the City of New York and the New York Public Library.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
L'Oeil de la Photographie
An evocative chronicle of New York’s Lower East Side’s halcyon days.
Insider
Isaiah Reynolds
Her intuitive archival process is an ode to the once stigmatized pocket of lower Manhattan.
Animal
Sara Rosen
Nestled within these mundane scenes is the magic of New York: the small town feeling of big city life.
Blind
Robert E. Gerhardt
The work invites curiosity and nostalgia about a place that has been greatly changed since she lived there.
The New York Times Book Review
Lauren Christensen
Looks like stills from a documentary’s B-roll, the tones soft and dim, slants of sunlight bathing street corners in a sense of calm, and stasis.
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A family hanging out in front of a bodega, a boarded up public bath, a car repair shop, a building collapse, bridge traffic on Delancey Street, a father and his daughters eating a lunch of boiled crabs on the sidewalk and this 1990 wrestling match on Clinton Street are just a few of the evocative archival photographs reproduced in Damiani's critically acclaimed Tria Giovan: Loisaida—collecting the noted American photographer’s NYC street work, 1984–1990. “The images are my response to a 1980s Lower East Side that has since been radically altered through waves of gentrification,” Triovan writes. “Universally, the images speak to the human condition. They reflect what is eternal and what is intrinsically New York City—vibrancy, diversity, coexistence and eccentricity.” continue to blog
A family hanging out in front of a bodega, a boarded up public bath, a car repair shop, a building collapse, bridge traffic on Delancey Street, a father and his daughters eating a lunch of boiled crabs on the sidewalk and this 1990 wrestling match on Clinton Street are just a few of the evocative archival photographs reproduced in Damiani's critically acclaimed Tria Giovan: Loisaida—collecting the noted American photographer’s NYC street work, 1984–1990. “The images are my response to a 1980s Lower East Side that has since been radically altered through waves of gentrification,” Triovan writes. “Universally, the images speak to the human condition. They reflect what is eternal and what is intrinsically New York City—vibrancy, diversity, coexistence and eccentricity.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 11.5 x 9 in. / 96 pgs / 77 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $77 ISBN: 9788862087872 PUBLISHER: Damiani AVAILABLE: 5/16/2023 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA
Tria Giovan: Loisaida New York Street Work 1984–1990
Published by Damiani. Text by Sean Corcoran.
An evocative chronicle of the Lower East Side’s halcyon days, from Giovan’s archives
In 1984, Tria Giovan moved to a tenement building on Clinton Street on New York City’s Lower East Side. She wandered the streets photographing as if in a foreign land. Loisaida— as it is known to some—was as gritty, authentic and humble as it was exotic, vibrant and colorful. The melding cultures and humanity she encountered inspired these photographs. Giovan left the neighborhood and the work behind in 1990 without ever editing or producing the majority of the photographs. The negatives languished until the pandemic.
Tria Giovan: Loisaida New York Street Work 1984–1990 is a time capsule, a cultural and historical record of a 1980s Lower East Side that fostered robust communities of diverse populations, including the many immigrants who took pride in making Loisaida their home. Her images invite curiosity and evoke nostalgia about a place in a bygone era that has been forever altered through waves of gentrification. Part preservation, part humanistic engagement, this project contributes to a historical visual legacy of the ever-evolving, always evocative Lower East Side.
Tria Giovan (born 1961) is the author of Cuba: The Elusive Island (1996), Sand Sea Sky: The Beaches of Sagaponack (2012) and The Cuba Archive (2017). Exhibited in the US and internationally, her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Library of Congress, the Parrish Art Museum, the Jewish Museum, the Museum of the City of New York and the New York Public Library.
