Books: On the Street

Why I am recommending this book:

This book is an anthropological masterpiece... This kind of stuff fascinates me...

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Amazon.com:

"Everybody has a life. Everybody has a sensibility. Everybody has yearnings. Everybody has a cause to plead. And everybody has a camera. It takes an intelligence bold as Amy Arbus to turn these universal commonplaces not just into works of art, but works of insight."

- Richard Avedon, photographer

"Arbus's style is so casual it feels effortless, and every picture has wit, soul, and graphic snap. Roaming the East and West Village streets, she found and recorded many of the era's most idiosyncratic icons, including John Sex, Ann Magnuson, Joey Arias, Phoebe Legere, and, inevitably Madonna, whose stained camel-hair coat and scarily prescient bowling bag still look like the very definition of downtown chic. Arbus clearly understands the power of cloths to express personality, so the best of her work is a seamless blend of fashion and portraiture."

- Vince Aletti, The Village Voice

"When the street becomes a stage "normal" people become players in a one act play which never ends. When the director is Amy Arbus, the plot thickens, not only is it the external shakings but she perceives and activates the internal quakings. Each person's moment becomes an equivalent...a poetic revelation. Amy is our visual scribe. We trust her avidity , since she speaks of all of us."

-Larry Fink, photographer

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