"When you are in the Subway, what is beautiful appears bestial, and what is bestial appears beautiful." Bruce Davidson
New York, at the beginning of the 1980s. A gloomy urban sprawl between hedonism and abyss. The subway, in its dilapidated state, is a hazardous place. Fires in tunnels, muggings, murder and drug trafficking are the order of the day; overcrowded wagons, frequent delays, graffiti and dirt everywhere. The journey with public transport is a nightmare. The photographer Bruce Davidson boards the train, immerses himself in the raging, rattling hustle and bustle of the city and portraits the passengers between uniformity and diversity, anonymity and intimacy, depression and inspiration. Whether lovers, musicians, homeless people, tourists or business people – in the subway and its passengers he finds the perfect metaphor for life in the metropolis with its aggression and ugliness, its hope and humanity.
C/O Berlin will present a selection of the subway series by Bruce Davidson including the 47 dye transfer prints for the first time in Berlin. 25 years after the first publication, the catalogue was re-issued by the Steidl Verlag Jahre and Aperture on the occasion of the exhibition in 2011.
