CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/20/2018

The Strand presents Gerhard Steidl launching books with Betsy Karel, Karine Laval, Orhan Pamuk, Tod Papageorge, Martin Schoeller and Lawrence Schwartzwald

Thursday, October 25 from 7–9 PM, the Strand Book Store invites you to join iconic German art and photography book publisher Steidl to celebrate a series of book launches. The evening will begin with a conversation between Orhan Pamuk and Gerhard Steidl, launching Pamuk's recent book, Balkon. This will be followed by signings with Betsy Karel, Karine Laval, Tod Papageorge, Martin Schoeller and Lawrence Schwartzwald

Betsy Karel 'America's Stage: Times Square' - In America’s Stage: Times Square, street photographer Betsy Karel uses five New York City blocks as a metaphor for urban America today. Her premise is that many of the major trends of our society are present in Times Square: globalism, consumerism, ubiquitous sexualization, hucksterism, surveillance, narcissism. All are compressed and amplified here. In Karel’s photos fantasy parades as reality, corporate interests invade almost all public spaces, and Times Square becomes a vivid, almost hyper-realistic, form of theatre.

Karine Laval 'Poolscapes' - Presenting public pools in urban and natural environments throughout Europe and private pools in the US in two distinct sections, the book is arranged chronologically and shows an evolution in tone and depth, from the real to the imagined, from the photographic to the painterly.

Orhan Pamuk 'Balkon' - In the winter of 2011 Nobel-Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk took 8,500 color photographs from his balcony with its panoramic view of Istanbul, the entrance of the Bosphorus, the old town, the Asian and European sides of the city, the surrounding hills, and the distant islands and mountains. Sometimes he would leave his writing desk and follow the movements of the boats as they passed in front of his apartment and sailed far away.

Tod Papageorge 'Dr. Blankman's New York' - A persuasive account of what it meant for me to be free with a Leica in the streets of my then newly-adopted home of Manhattan, a record drawn in the saturated colors of Kodachrome film, where even the heavy shadows pouring into the backdrop-avenues of the pictures seem full of depth.

Martin Schoeller 'Close' - Close presents 120 portraits of the world’s most famous and influential people across the arts and entertainment industries, politics, business and sport—from Julia Roberts and Adele, to Frank Gehry and Marina Abramovic, Barack Obama, Julian Assange and Roger Federer. Between 2005 and 2018 Schoeller photographed his subjects, in his words “to create a level platform, where a viewer’s existing notions of celebrity, values, and honesty are challenged.” Schoeller’s inspiration for Close was the water tower series of Bernd and Hilla Becher, his ambition to adapt their systematic approach to portraiture.

Lawrence Schwartzwald 'The Art of Reading' - The Art of Reading presents the first retrospective of Lawrence Schwartzwald’s candid images of readers, made between 2001 and 2017. Partly inspired by André Kertész’s On Reading of 1971, Schwartzwald’s subjects are mostly average New Yorkers—sunbathers, a bus driver, shoeshine men, subway passengers, denizens of bookshops and cafes—but also artists, most notably Amy Winehouse at Manhattan’s now-closed all-night diner Florent.

The Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway (at 12th Street)
New York, NY 10003
Phone: 212-473-1452
Email: orders@strandbooks.com