NEW YORK PARADISE LOST BUSHWICK ERA DISCO
Photographs by Meryl Meisler
July 3 – August 15, 2021
Book signing and opening: Saturday: July 3, noon to 4pm
The Center for Photography at Woodstock is pleased to announce the exhibition New York PARADISE LOST Bushwick Era Disco, featuring photographs by Meryl Meisler.
The exhibition revisits a pivotal time for both New York and the artist, during which Meisler was rarely seen without her trusted camera. We follow Meisler to Manhattan’s celebrity-laced Disco scene and the notorious Studio 54 in the 1970s. We see her engaging with her family or playfully pointing the camera at herself. And continue with her to Bushwick in the 1980s, where she taught in a public school, and where her camera captured a neighborhood in fast-paced transition starting with the view from her classroom.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Meryl Meisler was born 1951 in the South Bronx and raised in North Massapequa, Long Island, NY. Inspired by Diane Arbus, Jacques Henri Lartigue as well as her dad Jack and grandfather Murray Meisler, Meryl Meisler began photographing herself, family, and friends while enrolled in a photography class taught by Cavalliere Ketchum at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1975, Meisler returned to New York City and studied with Lisette Model, continuing to photograph her hometown and the city around her. After working as a freelance illustrator by day, Meisler frequented and photographed the infamous New York Discos. As a 1978 CETA Artist grant recipient, Meisler created a portfolio of photographs which explored her Jewish Identity for the American Jewish Congress. After CETA, Meisler began a three-decade career as a NYC Public School Art Teacher.
Meisler has received fellowships, grants and residencies from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Light Work, YADDO, VCCA, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, Time Warner, Artists Space, CETA, the China Institute and the Japan Society. Her work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Historical Society, Dia Art Foundation, MASS MoCA, Islip Art Museum, Annenberg Space for Photography, the New Museum for Contemporary Art, New-York Historical Society, Steven Kasher Gallery, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and in public spaces including Grand Central Terminal, South Street Seaport, Photoville and throughout the NYC subway system. Her work is in the permanent collections many art institutions including the American Jewish Congress, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Brooklyn Historical Society, Book Art Museum- Poland, Columbia University, Smithsonian Institute, and many more. She is a recipient of CPW’s 2021 Affinity Award.
Upon retiring from the NYC public schools, Meisler began releasing large bodies of previously unseen work. Her newest monograph, New York PARADISE LOST Bushwick Era Disco (Parallel Pictures Press, 2021), was published this summer with the support of the Leonian Foundation. Meisler’s work is currently featured in multiple solo exhibitions, including Paradise Lost Bushwick Era Disco at ClampArt in NYC through July 9, 2021, and in an exhibition at Light Work in Syracuse, NY, through July 23. Meisler lives and works in New York City and Woodstock, NY.
Meryl Meisler is represented by ClampArt, New York City. For print inquiries, please contact info@clampart.com.