William Klein: “William Klein + Brooklyn”
Howard Greenberg Gallery
The Fuller Building
41 East 57th Street, NYC, Suite 1406
From March 19th to May 2nd, 2015, the Howard Greenberg Gallery will display William Klein + Brooklyn, an exhibition of new color photographs from one of the 20th century’s leading photographers, William Klein. The exhibit’s nearly fifty images from the summer of 2013 are accompanied by the book, Brooklyn + Klein (Contrasto, Spring 2015).
For the project behind these photographs, Klein employed his motto “no rules, no limits, no holding back” to capture the exuberance of Brooklyn life. For many weeks, the artist wandered the streets, worked days and nights, shot from the window of his car, and roved the beaches of Coney Island and Brighton in order to create a masterful and frenzied kaleidoscope of the city and its many colors. From the West Indian Day Parade to a Hasidic prayer and study session to a Williamsburg tattoo parlor, Klein has portrayed Brooklyn in all of its lively cultural diversity.
Sony commissioned Klein to shoot Brooklyn exclusively for the company’s Global Imaging Ambassadors program, an initiative that united some of the world’s best photographers in the aim of storytelling.
Klein (b. 1928), a photographer for Vogue magazine, revolutionized fashion photography by taking the models out of the studio and into the streets, capturing both beauty and the grotesque within wide-angle and telephoto shots. Widely acknowledged as a significant innovator in the history and design of the photo book, Klein published his first book, Life is Good and Good For You in New York in 1956 and went on to publish three more. Klein, also an accomplished filmmaker and producer, has garnered various awards including Commander of Arts and Letters in France in 1989 and the International Center of Photography Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007. He currently lives and works in Paris, France.
