"Nickel Empire: Coney Island Photographs 1889-1948" Exhibition

Schroeder Romero & Shredder

poster for "Nickel Empire: Coney Island Photographs 1889-1948" Exhibition

This event has ended.

Nickel Empire consists of over two dozen vintage photographs of Coney Island dating from 1889 to 1948, displaying in rare clarity the twentieth century’ s great American playground, once described as "Sodom by the sea." Coney Island was a sanctioned escape from - and alternative to - everyday reality. The various rides, reenactments of disasters, freak shows, and other amusements highlight America's obsession with a bliss tinged with danger, and the thrill we find in spectacle. The photographs in the exhibition include scenes of scale models of rides, incandescent night views, people at play, and the great Bowery fire, among others. Machines of industry were turned into instruments of play and let loose the bright forces and dark possibilities of a vast democratic culture that was astonished, delighted and appalled by Coney Island. Also on display is the charred remnant of a Steeplechase wooden horse, now a monument to America's lost innocence.
[Image: E.E. Rutter c. 1925 "Untitled (Steeplechase Bicycle Ride)" Gelatin-silver print 7 3/8 x 9 1/8 in.]

Media

Schedule

from January 27, 2011 to February 26, 2011

Opening Reception on 2011-01-27 from 18:00 to 20:00

Artist(s)

E.E. Rutter et al.

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