Through the years of the 4th Street Photo Gallery with Alex Harsley's 'Entanglements'

[Photo from 2014 by James Maher]

Alex Harsley, the proprietor of the 4th Street Photo Gallery and a neighborhood resident since 1965, is the subject of a new exhibit at the Sheen Center.

Here's more what you can expect starting tonight through Aug. 4:

"Entanglements" is an ode to a community inextricably linked. For nearly 50 years, Alex Harsley has remained fixed; bearing witness to the symbiosis of life outside his 4th Street Photo Gallery. Through his classic, award-winning photography and conceptualized mixed-media pieces, time becomes textured, non-linear as the images bob between a romanticized 1970s East Village and an aged, yet still vibrant and diverse, ecosystem of present day.

Scenes revolve around the doorway and community of The 4​th Street Photo Gallery, the non-profit started by Harsley in the 1970s as a refuge for underrepresented artists, and, as Holland Cotter wrote, “he has made the city a primary subject of his classical brand of ‘street photography.’”

And...

The experience of "Entanglements" becomes a portal to the hidden connections and patterns that exist in all of our lives. It serves not just as nostalgia in remembering the past, but also as a reminder that these stories are still alive in the people, each who passed through this one East Village block, and continue to tangle themselves in love, change and community.

"Entanglements" opens tonight (July 11) at 6 in the Gallery at the Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker St. just west of the Bowery. Harsley will also be giving a "talkback" tonight at 7:30.

Meanwhile, you can read our two-part interview with Harsley, who turns 81 this year, from 2014 right here and here. And go visit his shop at 67 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

P.S.

And even if you don't know Alex, you will recognize his Dodge GTS Dart with traveling companions...


[James Maher]