NEW YORK FROM THE YARDS

NEW YORK 1984 - 1985

In 1986 Peter Spaans published his book ‘New York from the Yards’, but he did not enlarge any of his ‘yards’ photographs. Now in 2011 he enlarged for the first time a selection of these photographs for his exhibition in the gallery of Harper Levine in East Hampton, New York. Photographs from his book as well as photographs that have never been seen before are here in this exhibition. The individual photographs are themselves no less revelatory, first as aesthetic objects depicting the forlorn beauty and intensity one encounters at the edges of the city, but also as a slice of history, capturing a time and place associated more with graffiti art, abandoned buildings, and vague unease.