FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
powerHouse Books is pleased to announce the April 2016 release of
Gowanus Waters
By Steven Hirsch
The Gowanus Canal is Brooklyn’s 1.8-mile-long industrial waterway lined by fuel oil depots, bus yards, and scrap metal dumps. Its sediments hold 146 years' worth of hazardous industrial waste. Recognized as one of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States, in 2010 it was declared a Superfund site.
Vibrant petrochemical reactions in the canal, known by some locals as Lavender Lake, create fleeting patterns of color striation and orderly geometric formations. Photographer Steven Hirsch noticed this while exploring the industrial wasteland and thus began a multi-year effort to capture the most exquisite examples of these ephemeral waterscapes and to render them as abstract compositions. His painterly images swirl in a frenzy of elusive shapes and bright explosive colors revealing Impressionistic hints of Monet, Cubist allusions to Picasso, and biomorphic nods to Kandinsky. Gowanus Waters, a meditation on the sublime beauty and remarkable abstractions on the surface of the canal, remains fully aware of the noxious methods of its occurrence and its reason for being.
 Born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Steven Hirsch now lives in New York's East Village. Hirsch's work has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, Paris Match, Time, Wired, Vice, Print, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, and Stern. He has taught at the International Center of Photography, The New School, Parsons School of Design, The School of Visual Arts, New York University, and Pratt Institute. Hirsch has been awarded two New York Foundation for the Arts grants and his work has been widely exhibited and collected by The Museum of Modern Art, The Polaroid Collection, The Everson Museum of Art, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Israel Museum, The Howard Stein Collection, The Library of Congress, and the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center, among others.
A partial preview is available by clicking here: Gowanus Waters
Photography / Brooklyn / Color Form and Theory
Hardcover, 10-3/4 x 9-1/2 inches, 156 pages
ISBN: 978-1-57687-792-0, $45.00 US/CAN
High-res scans to your specification are available upon request; scanning from the book or lifting images from the mechanical file are strictly prohibited. Mandatory credit line: From Gowanus Waters by Steven Hirsch, published by powerHouse Books.
For more information, please contact:
Sam Caggiula
powerHouse Books, 37 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Tel: 212-604-9074 x118, sam@powerhousebooks.com
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