• My Account
    • View Order
    • Change Password
    • Edit My Address
    • Log Out
  • 0Shopping Cart
Light Work
  • Info
    • Visit / Contact
    • Mission / History
    • Partners & Sponsors
    • Blog
  • Opportunities
    • AIR Program
    • Grants Program
    • Careers
    • Artist Index
  • Events
  • Exhibitions
  • Urban Video Project
    • UVP Exhibitions
    • UVP Events
    • UVP Commission
    • UVP Community Nights
  • Contact Sheet 
    • Subscribe
    • Back Issues
  • Collection
  • Lab
    • Light Work Lab
    • Membership
    • Do-It-Yourself (DIY)
    • Services
    • Education
    • Reservations
  • Shop
    • Fine Print Program
    • Signed Books
    • Contact Sheet
    • Donate
    • Become a Benefactor
    • Returns & Payment Info
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Subscription Program

Light Work offers basic subscriptions to Contact Sheet as well as book and print level subscriptions, in which you can select a book or print to receive along with the publication. Please make your selection based on your preferred subscription level. Your subscription directly supports Light Work’s programs, including our residencies, exhibitions, publications, and more. Thank you!

Contact Sheet 211: Meryl Meisler

$12

Contact Sheet 211:Meryl Meisler
Paperback: 48 pages
Publisher: Light Work (March 2021)
ISBN: 978-1-945725-21-0

In stock

Categories: Back Issues, Contact Sheet Tags: African-American, Archival, Black, Collage
  • Description
  • Additional information

Description

Over the same decades, Meryl Meisler was photographing her life in and around New York City with the same sense of exploration and possibility as those pioneering Light Work AIRs. Retiring from decades as a public-school art teacher, Meisler began to unearth and rethink her own archive. Part time capsule of the 70s and 80s and part memoir, Best of Time, Worst of Times is an invitation to join her for a wild ride—disco nights, punk bars, strip clubs, Fire Island, family, friends and neighbors, and suburban Long Island. Her exuberant celebration of human connection is particularly poignant now, when we can take none of these gatherings for granted. Meisler clearly celebrates with her subjects. These are her people: she is not an outsider but a participant. She depicts our own shared humanity, humor, and joy.

“I want to show you who I am,” she says now. “My identity as a woman, Jew, lesbian, middle- class teacher, Baby Boomer, New Yorker, liberal, American—and so much more—influences how I perceive and create art about the world around me. I’ve only just begun revealing my huge photography archive. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come!”

This catalog includes an essay by Light Work’s associate director Mary Lee Hodgens.

—

Meryl Meisler was born 1951 in the Bronx and raised on Long Island, NY. Inspired by Diane Arbus, Jacques Henri Lartigue, her dad Jack and grandfather Murray Meisler, she studied photography with Cavalliere Ketchum at The University of Wisconsin–Madison, and with Lisette Model in New York City. Meisler frequented and photographed the legendary New York discos. A 1978 CETA Artist Grant supported her portfolio on Jewish identity. Upon retiring from 31 years as a NYC public school art teacher, she began releasing previously unseen work, including her books, A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick (Bizarre, 2014), Purgatory & Paradise: SASSY ‘70s Suburbia & The City (Bizarre, 2015) and New York PARADISE LOST: Bushwick Era Disco (forthcoming 2021). Meisler has received support from Artists Space, CETA, China Institute, Japan Society, LMCC, Leonian Foundation, Light Work, NYFA, Puffin Foundation, VCCA, and Yaddo. She has exhibited at the Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum, Dia Art Foundation, MASS MoCA, New Museum, New York Historical Society, Whitney Museum, and numerous public spaces. Her work is in the collections of AT&T, American Jewish Congress, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Brooklyn Historical Society, Columbia University, Emory University, Islip Art Museum, Library of Congress, Pfizer, Reuters, and many museums’ artist book collections. Meisler lives in New York City and Woodstock, NY. ClampArt represents her work.

Additional information

Edition

Signed by the artist, Trade Edition

Related products

  • Contact Sheet 167:
    Light Work Annual 2012

    $27
  • Contact Sheet 147:
    Light Work Annual 2008

    $27
  • Contact Sheet 162:
    Light Work Annual 2011

    $27
  • Contact Sheet 158:
    Laura Heyman

    $12

Light Work was founded as an artist-run non-profit organization in 1973.

Our mission is to provide direct support to artists working in photography and related media, through residencies, publications, and a community-access lab facility.

Read more →

Light Work Lab offers members a the highest quality printing and scanning equipment, black-and-white darkroom, a lighting studio, and a lounge and library where artists from all over the world converge.

Become a member today →

Connect with Light Work

Instagram →
Facebook →
Twitter →
Vimeo →
Newsletter →

Copyright ©1973– Light Work — 316 Waverly Avenue Syracuse, NY 13244
  • Mail
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Vimeo
  • Vimeo
  • Rss
Contact Sheet 210: Aaron TurnerContact Sheet 213: Clifford Prince King
Scroll to top

Let's celebrate! — 50th Anniversary: Selections from the Light Work Collection is on at the Everson Museum of Art through May 14, 2023. Dismiss