Alberto Casais “The Kids Ain’t Laughing No More”

Fortnight Institute

[Image: Alberto Casais "Nod to This" Oil on canvas 8 x 10 in. (2017)]

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Vietnam war, gas crisis, garbage strike, drug crisis, housing crisis, nuclear war, Ronald Reagan, and Ronald MacDonald.
These are the things that I remember from my childhood.
My family being from Yonkers it was only natural for my friends and I to venture around the five boroughs looking to get our kicks. The South Bronx was by far the most frequented “playground.”
It was glorious.
The landscape was surreal to me.
My cousin used to photograph the buildings with his Polaroid that he always carried with him. I used to wonder why he found these ugly, burned out, broken buildings a good subject to photograph.
One day a few years back I was listening to the song “Harlem” by the band Suicide. I immediately thought of my cousin and his camera.
Maybe there was a beauty to be found in these war torn neighborhoods? New York has changed drastically in the last few decades. I thought that maybe I could capture some of what my cousin found beautiful from that other New York.
The New York of the late 70s to mid-eighties.
The gone New York.
The different New York.
New York forever.
- Alberto Casais