No Title Here

Photographs by Jeff Mermelstein. Text by Marvin Heiferman.

powerHouse Books, New York, 2003. 128 pp., 75 color illustrations, 13¼x8¼".

“(Jeff Mermelstein is) one of the great snapshot artists of all time, right up there with Garry Winogrand, Elliott Erwitt, Burke Uzzle, and Lee Friedlander.” —Glenn O’Brien, Artforum In 1981, Jeff Mermelstein began taking trips to Asbury Park, New Jersey, where he gravitated toward the abundant supply of bizarre characters populating this town made famous by Bruce Springsteen. Drawn to the seedy atmosphere and entranced by the taffy-rich colors, Mermelstein was mesmerized by the sights: a pink lady at a baby parade, a startled bag lady dressed in red, a cat-show judge named Mr. Friend. Things kept getting stranger for Mermelstein, whose first magazine assignment was to photograph animal actors, including legendary four-pawed performers Morris the Cat, Lassie, Benji, the Merrill Lynch bull, the Exxon tiger, and Zippy, a performing chimp. “I still feel the excitement of hugging Zippy,” Mermelstein has noted, “and watching and photographing him in his bus as he entertained at a Bar Mitzvah on Long Island.” Inspired by these encounters with the odd and unusual, Mermelstein began to vigorously prowl the streets of New York City during the mid-’80s with some Kodachrome and a flash, snapping up scenes of vivid color, glitz, and plastic artifice. Attracted to the surreal, Mermelstein continued to document outlandish scenes, whether on magazine assignments or on adventures of his own devising—to dog shows, promotional events, and grand openings of malls across this colorful, far-too-colorful-for-words land. No Title Here catalogues the results of the past twenty years Mermelstein has spent photographing the wacky, the quirky, the off, and the oddly lyrical he has encountered across America.
Ok, let it be said right now: you have got to get this book. Why? Because comedy is healing, and you are going to laugh so much that you’ll cure whatever ails you. Not because the work is silly or juvenile; you will laugh at the sheer absurdity of modern life and how we look living it. Mermelstein has been photographing for over 20 years, honing his snapshot style, clearly ranking up there with Winogrand and Friedlander. Early assignments to cover animal acting seem to have led him into a surreal world of everyday oddities including animal shows, our National Parks, and book conventions. "I still feel the excitement of hugging Zippy [the chimpanzee, cover image above]," Mermelstein recalls, "and watching and photographing him in his bus and as he entertained at a bar mitzvah on Long Island." With a statement like that you know you’re in for a good time.

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