© Builder Levy. Sunglasses & Curlers, Coney Island, NYC  1963.

This image by Builder Levy is included in Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, an exhibition and book curated and written by Deborah Willis, at the Newark Museum of Art through April 28, 2011. Levy says, “I grew up in Brooklyn, not far from Coney Island.  As a child, I frequented this carnivalesque and gritty amusement park that sprawled for 20 or more blocks between the boardwalk and Surface Avenue.  Returning as a young  artist/photographer, I was attracted by the familial groupings, and the multiracial and multi-ethnic mingling of humanity, permeated with a joi de vivre and a chaotic, hardscrabble beauty.”

Builder is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and author of the books Builder Levy Photographer and Images of Appalachian Coalfields. His platinum print photographs will be on view during AIPAD at June Bateman Fine Art, booth 425,  March 17-March 20. His subjects include inner-city New York City where he was a NYC teacher of at-risk adolescents for 35 years; coalfield Appalachia (spanning more than 40 years), civil rights and peace demonstrations (in the 1960s & new millennium), Mongolia and other developing nations including Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, South Africa and Bolivia. Levy welcomes questions, comments or to purchase photos, click here.