120 Essex St. between Delancey and Rivington.
(Inside the Essex St. Food Market at the South end of the building)

Opening Beginning Saturday, August 18th. 4:00pm-6:00pm.
Open daily thereafter, Monday through Saturday 12:00 noon to 6pm. Closed Sundays.
Photo-Mart: photographs of the Essex Street Market taken by the people who actually work there.
CUCHIFRITOS is a project of the Artists Alliance Inc.

Photo-Mart statement:

The Essex Street Market is a long standing center of everyday culture in the Lower East Side. It is unique on many fronts: for the products available, the atmosphere of the place, its inherent support for rapidly disappearing craft practices, and its tradition of multi generational handing-down of family business lore. Also, by its very layout, it supports high job density and the preservation of the aesthetic of the bodega, with its tradition of daily food purchase and simultaneous exchange of neighborhood, community and cultural information. The Essex Street Market is a vital business and cultural institution in the Lower East Side and CUCHIFRITOS and the Artists Alliance Inc. are proud to be a part of highlighting its special place within the community and the culture of all New York City.

When the Artists Alliance dreamed up the project of establishing an art gallery in the Essex Street Market, part of our pitch was to provoke interaction and debate between the multi-cultural community of the lower East Side and the artists who are living and working here. There are a multitude of issues to address, from gentrification and a kind of new colonialism, issues of vending, consumerism, and display, and also the art world as an elite form of consumerism, the possibilities for positive mutual education within the neighborhood, the chance for a community critique of art and its processes, ways to preserve overlooked cultural institutions and life-ways embedded in the neighborhood, as well as how contemporary art might relate to local/global community issues in the present moment.

Its all well and good to talk a bunch of lofty goals like "positive mutual education" etc., but I don't think we could have foreseen just how much we would be learning even from setting up this first exhibit, Photo-Mart. We asked people who work in the market to take photos of whatever they wished, in the Market.

The first surprise came with attempts at explaining the project, and sorting out the simple documenting of who-shot-what. This revealed a whole host of competing frames of understanding for what it means to take a picture. In the art world the notion of photographing, authorship, and artwork are so clear cut as to be unexamined. Because the artists in this show are not from the art world I was reminded of how many different common and competing frames of reference, and also organizing principles there are for photography.

What is "taking photographs"? (Everyone knows what tourists and inspectors do.) I approach a vendor, to his initial understanding, I want to take a photo of him in his stall. With another vendor, she assumes I want her to take a photo of ME in the Market. For yet another, I am trying to gather some kind of information, which might eventually be used against him in some way. As I drop my own expectations about photography I get better at making myself clear. What is the most important thing to document about a photo? For some it is the general place where the photo is taken. For some it is the specific thing or person in the frame. For some it is the Establishment where the person is employed. Some people feel it is the name of the owner of the Establishment where the person is employed. Others think it is the person behind the camera.

Amazingly, despite the differences in expectations, these photographers employed many devices we might think of as typical art world strategies. The camera gets handed over - the author documents the minutiae of her personal space. The camera gets handed over - the author composes an entirely false scene of someone working in a part of the market where they are not actually employed. The camera gets handed over - the author documents the actual everyday activities of a neighbor. The camera gets handed over - the author takes a photograph - of a photograph. The camera gets handed over - the author collaborates with another author and they create the photo together. The camera gets handed over - the author understands that according to the rules of the project, he is to take the picture...he hands the camera over to his friend and explains to me "fine. I'm the photographer, but HE'S taking the picture."

Thanks to everyone at DBS, EDC, The Essex Street Market, the Artists Alliance Inc., the Vendors, and all the angels (you know who you are.) Thanks especially to the people who took critical time out of their daily labors to participate in this project. A little collaboration can go a long way. The photos speak for themselves.

-Paul Clay 2001.