The city / Mitch Epstein

What makes Mitch Epstein's most recent book, The City , particularly interesting is witnessing Epstein's attempt to breathe life back into a classic, albeit tired, genre. Instead of the usual raucous juxtapositions of visual clichés - pictures crammed with street corner sturm und drang and urban gargoyles - The City 's elliptical narrative unfolds quietly. There's a meditative, almost medicated calmness to the book's color still lifes and the droll display of overwrought deli cakes; a street festival shooting gallery's targets, featuring the faces of Timothy McVeigh, Amy Fisher and Hitler, offering discounted prices for kids; the sports jacket, carefully folded and placed on the grass in Central Park, whose banal but eerie presence suggests anything from a lunchtime nap to murder. To complicate matters, these images are interspersed with black-and-white portraits - of Epstein's wife, daughter, friends and acquaintances - that are equally enigmatic. Some subjects smile; some look into the distance. Still others stare back - with willful intent, or unable or uninterested in hiding their vulnerability - through the camera's lens. As complex and beautiful as Epstein's photographs of New York situations are, as intimate as his portraits might be, The City ultimately creates something surprising; the opportunity to ponder what photography can and cannot reveal about our public lives and our most private selves.

English