New York City, 2004

Artist Roger Bruhn (b. 1941)

Date2004

MediumEpson ultrachrome print

Dimensions36 x 24 in.

ClassificationsPhotograph

Credit LineGift of the artist

Object number2006.39

DescriptionRoger Bruhn (b. 1941)
New York City, 2004, 2004
Epson ultrachrome print
Gift of the artist, 2006.39

id-westerner Roger Bruhn is a self-taught photographer who began taking pictures in 1965. He has had a professional career as a commercial photographer and graphic designer since 1976, after studying Philosophy and English at the University of Nebraska. Bruhn is predominantly an architectural photographer and works mostly in black and white, in order to reveal the "guts of things." He compares his work to that of the great photographers of the 1920s, such as Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) and Edward Steichen (1879-1973), who strove to create works of art out of their commercial assignments.

For the series New York City, 2004, Bruhn used a small, high-resolution digital camera that could be kept in his pocket, making him constantly ready to capture the accidentally humorous and seemingly serendipitous scenes he observed while walking the streets of the city. The resulting group of streetscapes presents a dramatic clash between the everyday lives of ordinary New Yorkers and the fantasy world represented by the commercial advertisements that surround them at all turns. In this photograph, the hurried, oblivious New Yorkers walking on the street present a humorous juxtaposition to the glamorous, larger-than-life runway models above, who threaten to walk straight off the catwalk and into the real world.

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