Ken Schles is the author of Invisible City (1988; reprint 2014), The Geometry of Innocence (2001), A New History of Photography: The World Outside and the Pictures In Our Heads (2007), Oculus (2011) and Night Walk (2014).
His books have been exhibited by The Museum of Modern Art, noted by the New York Times Book Review, cited in histories of the medium (Parr/Badger, Auer & Auer, 10x10 American Photobooks) and issued by some of the foremost publishers of our time (Steidl, Hatje Cantz, Twelvetrees Press). They're considered "intellectual milestones in photography" (Süddeutsche Zeitung), "hellishly brilliant" (The New Yorker), notable by New York Times and a favorite of the photographer Robert Frank.
Ken Schles' work is included in private and public collections such as MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museo d"Arte Contemporanea (MACRO) Testaccio Museum, and more than 100 other museum and library collections world-wide.
A gritty and penetrating portrayal of New York’s Lower East Side in the 1980s by Ken Schles will be on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery from January 29 – March 14, 2015. The exhibition of 40 black and white photographs coincides with the publication of a new Steidl monograph, Night Walk (2014), a companion to Schles’s underground cult classic Invisible City (1988). Recently reprinted by Steidl, Invisible City is considered alongside Brassaï’s Paris de Nuit and Ed van der Elksen’s Love On The Left Bank to be one of the great depictions of the nocturnal bohemian experience of the 20th century. An opening reception with the artist will be held on Thursday, January 29 from 6-8 p.m.
In 1983, Ken Schles moved into an apartment on Avenue B in the East Village. His windows were boarded up be...