The Armoury (840 Madison Avenue)
Reception for the Artist
May 5, 2022, 5-7 PM
William Meyers has a vision of New York's quotidian sublime. The photographs on exhibit at ART@840 Maison are drawn from his project Music New York. The project explores the ways in which New Yorkers encounter music; it deals with musicians, audiences, venues and, in a few images, symbolic representations. The project's theme is the variety and ubiquity of musical engagement in the city, not celebrity or any particular genre.
He states:
"In New York, music is everywhere. All sorts of people play all sorts of music at all times of the day and night, and in every conceivable venue-not just concert halls, bars, and cabarets, but in the parks, subways, streets, schools, churches, synagogues, and, of course, in the privacy of their homes. The pictures here are of musicians performing in public, mostly to make money, but sometimes simply for the pleasure of playing to an audience. The music ranges from sublime 15th-century polyphonic sacred a cappella motets to the intolerable cacophony of rhythms whacked out on plastic pails. The caliber ranges from truly professional to pathetic. There is a great democracy in all of this as the right to perform is open to all musicians and the right to listen to all passers-by or ticket-holders; the latter also have the equally important right to ignore. At a time when most music is heard in one electronic format or another, these musicians preserve the tradition of live music."
William Meyers has had work exhibited in solo exhibitions in museums here and abroad as well as in solo and group gallery shows. It has been published in many newspapers and magazines. Portfolios of his prints are included in the permanent collections of the New York Public Library, the New York Historical Society, the Museum of the City of New York, and several other institutions. His photo book Outer Boroughs: New York Beyond Manhattan was published by Damiani Editore in 2015. Mr. Meyers writes about photography for the Wall Street Journal.
All prints were beautifully printed by a master black-and-white printer, Chuck Kelton.
Location & Hours:
The Armoury, 840 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10021 (bet. 69 & 70th St.)
Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am - 6 pm