Nowhere in Manhattan: Vote On These Unbelievable Photos

The Manhattan landscape: skyline, skyscrapers, concrete, sidewalks, highways, busy waterways, tenements, planned parks...

And after seeing Matt Jensen's photographs: moss covered rocks, old growth forest, rural decrepitude, and unplanned winding footpaths.

Check them out here AND vote by telling us whether you think these photos are believable or unbelievable. But just remember that no matter what you think... they were taken in Manhattan.

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Manhattan always seemed to me the greatest artifact of modern human design--an island of dense ingenuity where even the green spaces are a finishing layer of planning and building atop previous structures and habitations. A collection of photographs by Matt Jensen opening this Thursday in midtown challenges the completeness of this assumption. Matt, a consummate wanderer, has found unexpected kinds of landscapes in Manhattan, places he's called Nowhere that are flipped from the usual Manhattan paradigm. Here Nature is dense and our interventions into it are fragile, organic and fleeting. The photos are both a powerful reminder of the relationship between people and nature as well as an amazing demonstration of the ability of the camera to re-frame the way in which we see familiar spaces.

The opening this Thursday is part one of the ongoing project. In part two, Matt plans to print the photos on donated build-boards and construction scaffolding in Manhattan, essentially placing the images of nowhere somewhere.

Nowhere in Manhattan opens this Thursday from 6 to 9 PM at Chashama gallery in midtown.
112 West 44th Street, New York, NY
The show will run August 13th through August 22nd.

For further information on Matt Jensen and Nowhere in Manhattan see:

www.NowhereInManhattan.org

www.Jensen-Projects.com

 

Comments

[greg556]

11:44 PM on 08/13/2009

I don't see what the big deal is. How hard is it to find a tree to photograph in one of the parks? This is only interestin­g to someone who really doesn't look around Manhattan much.

[SeconLine]

06:14 PM on 08/13/2009

That park used to be a haven for junking stolen cars.

The Circle Line boats would point them out.

[JenPhoto]

10:35 AM on 08/13/2009

Oh why doesn't anyone every take 5 seconds to actually look into what they criticizin­g.

The pictures are NOT SUPPOSED to be amazing Ansel-Adam­s-photos-o­f-Yosemite­, if you go to the website indicated you can read how the project is about how wonderful and important places that feel like "nowhere" are and how being quiet and empty makes them special, thus anywhere BUT nowhere. It's a simple reminder for us to not forget our own backyard. The photograph­er has employed a romantic eye to traditiona­lly new-topogr­aphic spaces, intentiona­lly hyper-edit­ing but doing so to take simple photos on purpose. The photos in slideshow/­jpeg form likely pale to what the actual prints look like and there's also much larger selection at the website which gives a better feel as to the scope of the project.

But that's the hard part about art and photograph­y, especially anything where the conceptual elements are central, once they leave the hands of the artist the intent is easily lost under other peoples first reactions and writing.

[RangeMoor]

10:01 AM on 08/13/2009

For those of us not in NY, captions anyone?

[LaurenMarie984]

12:32 AM on 08/13/2009

I wasn't to impressed -- not with the photos; the photos were amazing. They just weren't "unbelieva­ble"

[enilorac]

09:56 PM on 08/12/2009

His best pics are of buildings and spaces with human traces as they pose the nagging question are they abandoned or inhabited by the homeless.
Hope New York does not go back to the terrible days when homeless encampment­s were everywhere during the go go Ronald Reagan 80's.
The city was a dangerous place in those days.
Now it is America's urban crown jewel.

[Mari X]

05:13 PM on 08/12/2009

I'm thinking that the Island must have been very beautiful, once, before the Dutch snatched it from the Natives.

[iskra]

04:22 PM on 08/12/2009

This was a sad collection of pics from our beautiful Island. Feels like the photograph­er was trying to make it as miserable as possible. I wonder if they are a native of the city or not?

There's a fair amount of green space in Manhattan, on the upper reaches as others have pointed out, and in the parks of which there are more than a you might think.

I found these pics to be depressing­, not showing the beauty of the city at all. If you're going to be up by the GWB why not some from around the cloisters? Beautiful green space and views.

[johnnynyc]

03:32 PM on 08/12/2009

Few people know about Inwood Hill Park on the northern tip of Manhattan.

[S1m0n]

02:30 PM on 08/12/2009

None of those are of old-growth forest.

[Abd-ul-Latif]

02:56 PM on 08/12/2009

Old-growth forest is actually pretty rare even in the most pristine, natural areas. It is only the final stage in a fully natural process of forest succession­, and it's a final stage that is often not reached, for reasons that are not necessaril­y anthropoge­nic.

[SeconLine]

06:18 PM on 08/13/2009

This park is all virgin timber.

I believe it was part of Audubon's estate.

[Aabby]

01:09 PM on 08/12/2009

I really love New York...par­ticularity during the months when trees are green

[SeconLine]

12:39 PM on 08/12/2009

Most of these photos were taken in Inwood Hill Park. It's the only stand of virgin timber in Manhattan.

There is NOTHING remarkable about these photos.

NOTHING

[PocketWrench]

12:26 PM on 08/12/2009

The photos are great (for the most part) but this slide show format is brutal. Having to click and reload for every picture is silly.

[NYCMami]

12:20 PM on 08/12/2009

Meh

Absolutely nothing remarkable about this pictures. Totally geared to those fey New York folks who never venture uptown. Inwood and Washington Heights welcomes you, you cowards. We're hardly "nowhere".

[daddio5251]

11:42 AM on 08/12/2009

These had to have been taken on the same half-acre plot somewhere, just at different angles. Notice that the photograph­er keeps his lens pointed at the ground, seemingly to prevent all the surronding city scape from being seen. Personally­, I didn't think there was any square yard of Manhattan real estate that wasn't paved (except Central Park and the other city parks, which are paved just below the grass!). So if we see a photo of more than one tree in one place in Manhattan, it is cause enough for a special exhibition­!

This is a big deal over nothing.

[enilorac]

09:58 PM on 08/12/2009

New York City has a huge amount of Green Space. Numerous parks and back yards full of gardening.
It is not a concrete jungle. And we have a mayor intent on Greening the city, just as Mayor Daley Jr. is doing in Chicago ( actually their First Lady key in the successful effort)