Opening Reception August 5th, 6-9 PM
AyzART, One 7th Avenue South, West Village

On view from August 5th through September 6th, 2013

AyzArt is honored to present the work of Alex Harsley, an insightful and poetic NYC photographer. Harlsey’s Four Seasons will include 30 images that cover the entirety of his prolific career of 50 years.

At eleven years old, Alex Harsley moved from a rural farm in South Carolina to New York City in 1950. Since then, Alex Harsley, being an African American artist and facing discrimination, has succeeded in earning the respect and admiration of the world of fine art photography. In his path, he laid a trail for other young artists to follow, in the the founding of Minority Photographers and 4th Street Photo Gallery that both serve to help artists develop who faced similar struggles along with being a community for artistic inspiration, exhibition and collaboration.

With 50 years of Alex Harsley’s photography, New York City has been the subject and beneficiary of that overflowing and generative curiosity that springs from a radical change of scenery. Harsley has maintained such a wondrous eye for decades demonstrating his affection for NYC and willingness to re-discover it. His street scenes unravel the city in a way that references history by even more than that references the timeless NYC experience, the common urban beauty that often slips away in a busy New York day.

Alex Harsley elegantly distills the unexpected from mundane NYC streets, seeing the unintended and vibrancy of the urban existence (cars on blocks, children opening fire hydrants. We enjoy his fascination at how natural we become in a hulking metropolis as unnatural as New York City. With his preference for aesthetic minimalism, it is extraordinary how the photos take what we see everyday and seeing it anew. Indeed Harsley’s photographs have an unmistakable mystique, where snowstorms, children on summer days and night meetings, seem at once self-evident and a glimpse of a larger story. Applying his talents at a closer range, Harsley takes some of the most intimately revealing photos of past performers and public figures. In particular, his portraits of a young Muhammad Ali get us closer to the boxer and find a complex grace.

AyzArt invites you to visit the exhibition Four Seasons of Alex Harsley and see firsthand the contribution of this fine photographer.