New Hunter College publication

125th Street: Photography in Harlem (ISBN: 9783777437347)

This 2022 publication, a collaborative project of the Hunter College Art Galleries, Hunter East Harlem Gallery, and students in the Advanced Certificate in Curatorial Studies program in the Department of Art and Art History at Hunter College, New York, is an unprecedented study of Harlem’s 125th Street photography and cultural identity.  The book is edited by Antonella Pelizzari and Arden Sherman, and published by Hirmer Verlag.

Harlem’s 125th Street is a marker of twentieth-century urban experience, a thoroughfare that encapsulates powerful stories of business and consumption, real estate and gentrification, glamour and entertainment, and political uprising. This book explores the constant mutation of this street life through the works of a large roster of photographers and performance artists. The photographs in this book represent narratives of resilience and stories of survival against a rapid and sweeping movement of history across 125th Street, where buildings and communities are periodically destroyed and built anew. The works shape a sense of belonging and identity that goes against the stereotyping and mystification of this neighborhood.