Word on the Street is a new book by photographer Richard Nagler. The 128-page hardcover contains seventy photographs that pair isolated words found in Nagler’s environment with random passersby. “It is the culmination of Nagler’s decades-long project of seeking out words that appear in public spaces and waiting until just the right person walks by to capture photos that are sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, and always arresting,” the publisher says. Word on the Street is available now from Heyday, at a price of $25.

Press Release

“WORD ON THE STREET” by acclaimed photographer Richard Nagler in the LOS ANGELES TIMES

One word, one person, one photographer. In his latest book, WORD ON THE STREET (Heyday, November 2010, hardcover), acclaimed photographer Richard Nagler showcases a collection of photos that pair word and image. It is the culmination of Nagler’s decades-long project of seeking out words that appear in public spaces and waiting until just the right person walks by to capture photos that are sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, and always arresting. The photo that spawned the series shows an elderly woman gazing out the window of a dingy apartment building with the word “Time” written in unlit neon letters beneath her.

“Visual poetics” is how Allen Ginsberg once characterized Nagler’s photographs. “Every one of these picture poems brings to my mind a haiku.”

Drawing on some of the same elements that distinguish the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and Ed Ruscha, Nagler’s urban photographs have delighted audiences around the world. Compelling, shocking, amusing, and sensitive, each portrait is a visual pun-a wink to the reader and an invitation to create a story to complete the narrative.

Some photographs took weeks to realize, capture, and record. Some took milliseconds. Sometimes years go by before Nagler spots a word suitable to become a picture-after all, these are in many ways accidental photographs. The magic of his work rests in the serendipitous moment when person and word come together. WORD ON THE STREET reveals that we are all part of an amazing artistic mosaic, even as we blithely stroll down the street.

Richard Nagler’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Artforum International, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications; shown in museums and galleries around the world; and included in prominent public and private collections. Nagler is respected as an observer with a unique photographic vision as well as a photography collector with a strong sense of history. WORD ON THE STREET is his third book of photography. He is represented by George Krevsky Gallery and currently lives in San Francisco.

One of America’s most respected scholars on the visual arts, Peter Selz is a professor emeritus of art history at the University of California, Berkeley; founding director of the University Art Museum; and chief curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Selz is the author of numerous books on art, artists, and politics, and he is a leading authority on Abstract Expressionism, Bay Area Figuration, the New York School, and German Expressionism.

“Richard Nagler finds ‘Words’ in the streets like objets trouvés, giving each an inscrutable meaning.”
-Lawrence Ferlinghetti

“Through his ‘Word’ photographs, Nagler is watching the world carefully and seeing what we say about the world and the world says about us, one word at a time.”
-Ishmael Reed

“As the history of fine art photography is written and re-written, this body of work by Richard Nagler will always stand apart for its imaginative synthesis of word and image.”
-Peter Selz

ABOUT RICHARD NAGLER

Richard Nagler’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Artforum International, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications; shown in museums and galleries around the world; and included in prominent public and private collections. Nagler is respected as an observer with a unique photographic vision as well as a photography collector with a strong sense of history. WORD ON THE STREET is his third book of photography. He is represented by George Krevsky Gallery and currently lives in San Francisco.

ABOUT FOREWORD WRITER, PETER SELZ

One of America’s most respected scholars on the visual arts, Peter Selz is a professor emeritus of art history at the University of California, Berkeley; founding director of the University Art Museum; and chief curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Selz is the author of numerous books on art, artists, and politics, and he is a leading authority on Abstract Expressionism, Bay Area Figuration, the New York School, and German Expressionism.

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