URBANATICS The City Seen and Unseen

The intent of this exhibition is to remind ourselves how much we are missing while we walk through our cities  fixated on the screens of our mobile devices.  There was a time when no such distraction existed, and collisions between pedestrians was more accidental than commonplace.

Through the eyes of  more than 15 wonderful photographers let us  be entertained and mesmerized by the intimate details and moments captured by those who looked carefully and affectionately at the city beneath them, above them and all around them.

Perhaps none captured the lyricism of city life better than Helen Levitt, exemplified by her 1939 image of a girl with her head buried in a baby carriage while the baby grins ear to ear. Or Burk Uzzle’s 1970 picture from Chicago, where a crowd leans over a railing to witness a …we really don’t know, but we are curious, just like all those viewers on the bridge. And the secrets hidden by the dark of night are lusciously revealed by Fred Herzog, who captured in the late 50’s the neon glow of downtown Vancouver, or by Joan Colom, who meandered through the Raval district of Barcelona during those same years. Or by Charles Harbutt, catching a kiss on a NewYears Eve, 1961.

The show also features classic black and white  work by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Andre Kertesz, Ray Metzker, Daido Moriyama, Peter Keetman, Michael Spano, and bold contemporary color prints by Europeans  Peter Bialobrzeski, Stephane Couturier and Denis Darzacq.