No man is an island

Front Room Gallery present “No Man Is An Island: poetry in the ruins of the New York archipelago”, fifty years of work by the photographer Philippe Bühler documenting many of the islands surrounding Manhattan. This is Buehler’s third solo exhibition at Front Room Gallery.

Phillip Buehler is a New York-based photographer who documents the deterioration and remnants of neglected architecture built in the recent past. In the series “No Man is an Island…”, Buehler photographed the historic, but also often forgotten, islands around New York. Some of them, like Ellis Island, have a considerable impact on the history, culture and existence of national identity. Others, like “Rat Island,” a 2.5-acre private islet in the north Bronx with an unusual statue of William Tell (and little else), are known to virtually no one. But many, like North Brother Island, were home to famous institutions like Riverside Hospital, a place to quarantine people with smallpox, then tuberculosis, and later even drug addiction. Finally, the forces in place let it go to seed, and it has been abandoned for around sixty years now.

Buehler’s exhibition originated in his boat trips to the then abandoned Ellis Island in 1974, when he was seventeen, to make a 16mm documentary film. In Buehler’s “Ferry Ellis Island, 1974,” the photograph captures the haunting silhouette of the ferry’s skeleton, its structure standing like a monument to time and history. The ferry, once a bustling ship carrying hopeful immigrants to American shores, is now beached and weathered, its skeletal structure in stark contrast to the backdrop of the docks. The photograph captures a frozen moment in time, where past and present intersect, inviting viewers to reflect on the passage of time and the stories that persist in the silent echoes of abandoned places.

Coincidentally, the 16mm documentary film of Buehler and a friend shot on Ellis Island will be published in the New York Times Op-Doc series “Encore” the same week as this exhibition opens. His adventures at Ellis Island will also be the subject of a public television episode of “State of the Arts” premiering May 24, the day before the exhibit opens.

Buehler’s photograph taken at Staten Island’s Boat Graveyard offers a captivating glimpse of a scene reminiscent of Kevin Cosner’s post-apocalyptic blockbuster film, “Waterworld.” At first glance, what appears to be an oval floating hangar protruding from the water turns out to be a submerged Navy submarine. This subhunter (USS PC11264) was the first Navy ship crewed by a majority African-American crew. Surrounded by the rusting corpses of many other warships and boats, the Sub Chaser stands like a silent sentinel, a relic of past conflicts now abandoned to the relentless march of time.

These islands were often used to keep people out of the public eye – the mentally ill, the crippled, and drug addicts. They have had famous residents, like Woody Guthrie and Typhoid Mary, but many islands are mostly ignored and forgotten. Roosevelt Island was one such place, built to shelter victims of smallpox. Before the famous Roosevelt Island Tramway, there was Renwick Castle, a Gothic Revival-style building designed primarily by James Renwick Jr., the architect who designed St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It’s still in ruins, but photos Buehler took in 1981 give off a different vibe. Overgrown and leaning against the Manhattan skyline, it seems completely out of place, and almost forty years later, even more so.

Buehler has spent the last half century visiting New York’s other islands, sometimes by boat, sometimes by drone, seeking to save some of their stories before they are lost forever.

Buehler received his BA from Rutgers University and his MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts. Phillip Buehler has been featured in Art in America, The New York Times, Art News, The Art Newspaper, Wall Street Journal, American Photo Magazine, The Huffington Post, Hyperallergic, Gothamist, The Guardian, The Sun, ABC, CNN and many other items. other publications.

Phil Buehler: No man is an island
Poetry in the ruins of the New York archipelago
May 25 – June 23, 2024
Opening reception Saturday, May 25, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Front Room Gallery
205 Warren Street
Hudson, New York
Fri-Sun 12pm-5pm and by appointment

https://www.frontroomles.com/phil-buehler-no-man-is-an-island