“…Every time we meet it’s like time never changed at all…”
San Telmo, Buenos Aires, February 2011
San Telmo on a Sunday is completely something different than San Telmo on a regular day. The bohemian neighborhood is getting packed with Arts, Antiques, Tango dancers, street performers and timelessness characters. After a while, when it got too crowded, I stepped into a courtyard in one of the alleys. I climbed to one of the building’s rooftops to get a better view of San Telmo when I saw these two people. I liked how they both wore the some colors of clothes, the same gesture with their hands and up till now, I don’t know what the woman was looking for in her bag and wether the man was waiting for her.
Drinking ice cold Havana’s coffee with dulce de leche alfajores 2 times a day, taking the subte instead of the subway, walking the streets of Palermo SoHo and not the streets of SoHo New York, Evita Peron museum, Colon Theater, Muma’s sugary cupcakes, Casa Rosada, walking the streets of palermo Hollywood and hoping to see a famous movie star, Antique market in San Telmo, Brunch in San Telmo and cold beer in Caminito, La Boca. Witnessing the wild crowds coming out of a Futball game after their team won, Bar 6 at Armenia street, stopping at every coffee place or a store in Nicaragua street, streets with names of countries in Latin America. Over looking the city from Palacio Barolo just before the sun goes down, convincing the concierge at the Moreno Hotel to let me take pictures from the private rooftop.
Recoleta. Recoleta cemetery. and Recoleta again the next day. Walking in the area of San Martin and San Nicolas and feels like in Paris, Plaza de Mayo, Libros del Pasaje, best book store in Palermo. Fresh squeeze orange juice almost every day, watching the locals dance Tango and Milonga along the river, hoping there will be a beach, and not just a river, yummy cheese and chocolate at Cucina Paradiso, Helena trendy Bar Resto, crossing the bridge of Puente de la Mujer toward Puerto Madero, 7pm drinks at Faina Hotel (is a must) candle light dinner at Artemisia, kissing a last kiss at the cutest cafe El Ultimo Beso, joining the tour of Graffiti Mundo and see the most beautiful Graffiti wall after I thought I have seen it all. Taking a boat around Tigre, buying a floral summer dress and getting the kick of walking in shorts on February…priceless!
My photographed article about Buenos Aires and six top locations to see and visit is featured in ‘Maslul’, the Travel section of Yediot Ahronot news publication, Israel. My image made it to the cover.
Like a lot of things in life, this photography project started with a random image. Like a lot of times in life, sometimes you have to get away from a place in order to rediscover it. These two sentences basically initiated my on-going photography project called “Intimacy Under the Wires.”
As a street photographer based in New York City, I hardly (if ever) come across the sight of laundry hung outside windows to get dry. It was a very common thing for me to see, however, when I grew up in Israel.
I was on a holiday visit to Israel on April 2010 when it all started.
I made plans to meet a friend at the flea market in old Jaffa and he was late. While waiting for him, I wandered the quiet back streets of this old and vivid neighborhood, when a woman’s voice from an upper floor caught my attention. I looked up and saw her hanging her laundry outside the balcony. For some, it may be an ordinary chore, but I haven’t seen that since I moved to Manhattan 10 years ago. I stayed there, standing in the street under the crumbling balcony, and observed her. Few minutes after she hung her clothes, a warm breeze from the sea came by and animated them.
I just had to take a picture!
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After Tel Aviv, I had a stop in London for few days, and then there was the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, so I got stuck for a week there. I used the time to walk in the streets of London and take a lot of pictures. I was in Brixton, London, when I took this image, which is one of my favorites.
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I think this image made me wonder about the people who wear these clothes. I really wanted to know more about them. What they do for a living? How do they look? But mostly wanted to know about their character. So I think this image really made me think further.
From looking at someone’s laundry we can tell so much about them and their families without even meeting them. Some have all work shirts, some party dresses, some uniforms, children’s clothes, tank tops, t-shirts, sexy lingerie and so on.
Laundry is something so personal and private yet so public. Looking at laundry seems so mundane, yet when you delve into it, you realize laundry tells of people’s intimate lives. They hang their sheets, their night clothes, even their underwear for all to see. We would never expose these personal things if we were actually in them, would we?
This project, which was named by Phaidon “Intimacy Under the Wires,” is not just about laundry.
It is about the differences among the cultures, the places and the people who wear these clothes. I love traveling to different places, taking portraits of city streets and their dynamics. I often say that I don’t take people’s portraits but cities’. Since that afternoon in Israel, I am drawn to images of laundry.
In every city there is that area, usually in old neighborhoods, where laundry is hung up outdoors. It amazes me to see how laundry is similar in different countries and cultures and yet so different. When I take a picture of laundry I always make sure to relate it to its location. Whether it’s a street sign, a building, a window, I am also interested in the texture and colors of the buildings where the laundry is out to dry.
Another layer hidden or not hidden in this project, beside intimacy, is our urge toward voyeurism. We are all voyeurs. Photographers maybe more than others.
When I shoot these images, I am standing under the laundry wires and waiting for the right moment, when a breeze passes by and brings life, energy and rhythm to the clothes. I find laundry very intimate and sexy, and when I shoot, the act of looking up, is like the feeling of being under someone, unseen, a voyeur, a spy, like sitting under the boardwalk at the beach and watching people walk by, unaware. And this is actually what we photographers mostly do: spy with our cameras and tell stories with the images.
“Intimacy Under the Wires” is an on-going project. It has been featured in the following blogs: Phaidon, Design Sponge, Design Milk, Feature Shoot, Trend Hunter, aCurator
New York City is home to a great amount of museums–whether they are art museums, historical museums, design or cultural ones, this city has them all. But as much as it is blessed with great variety and unparalleled quality, I believe that the real museums are not among the four walls, but outside, on the streets. As a photographer based in New York, the streets of this city have always been a great inspiration for my photography: whether it’s the architecture, the city reflections on windows, the stream of energy in the streets, the people walking in it, the titanic billboards and advertising ads, the colorful murals and the graffiti on the walls. It all inspires me.
Before I continue, I have a confession to make. I have a ‘thing’ for documenting graffiti and street art. It all started a few years ago when I wandered the streets of Soho and came across a painted purple corky image on a door. Intrigued, I took a picture of that character.
The next day, when I came back to take more pictures, someone has already posted and painted something else next to it, which turned it completely to something else. Something different. Something new. I then realized that the feeling of “Here today, gone tomorrow” is not only relevant for the world of photography, but even more so to street art and graffiti. Furthermore, photography and street art are inexplicably linked because the only documentation street art has is through a picture (or video).
Sometimes all it takes is taking a wrong turn in one of the streets of New York to discover something new on one of the walls. The more I started to search for street art, the more I learned about its culture and the artists behind it, even though most keep an anonymous identity or are known by their pseudonyms.
What I love about street art is its accessibility but at the same time, you needs to know more about the culture of a place to decipher its message. With time, my curiosity about street art has taken me beyond the streets of New York to those of major cities such as Berlin, Buenos Aires, Paris, London, Tel Aviv and many more cities to come.
I know there is that sentence ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’. As for me, I just love to eat the lemons! Just like that. Straight. I am spending the month of April in Tel Aviv, my home town, for a holiday visit and my friends took me to this new Italian restaurant, in the middle of the flea market in Jaffa. It was a Saturday afternoon, the market was closed and the streets were quiet. We were talking about life in Tel Aviv in comparison to life in New York, about the latest Graffiti exhibit that was just opened in Tel Aviv museum (Street Art in a museum?) and how Tel Aviv is getting equipped with street bikes.
The sun was out, I was eating my lemons and catching up with friends was just perfect.
This shot was actually one of the first ones which initiated my on going project ‘On the Table’
In recent years, Buenos Aires has become more and more popular among tourists (not necessarily from Latin America) and, as the economy stabilized, the city has become attractive among foreign investors, too. The question is no longer ‘Will I visit Buenos Aires’ but ‘When will I?’ And ‘when’ is actually NOW: December to March are summertime in Argentina, making the city more attractive among tourists from Europe and North America. (What can be more enjoyable than walking in shorts in the middle of February while the New Yorkers are bundled up with heavy coats?)
What most attracted me to Buenos Aires — besides having the summer to myself in mid-February — is the strong street art scene graffitied on the walls of the city. As a photographer who closely watches street artists in New York, Buenos Aires certainly was for me the next obvious target.
Here are few things to do in your next trip to Buenos Aires:
* Take a guided tour to Palacio Barolo and climb to its top to observe the city from a bird-eye view. The building, which is built in neo-Romantic, neo-Gothic style, is an allegory to the ‘Divine Comedy’ written by Dante in the early 14th century. The building is 22 stories high, and the top floor is a transparent tower that used to be a beacon. The tour guide talks about the history and the architecture of this marvelous tower.
* Many call Buenos Aires ‘The Paris of Latin America’. Taking an afternoon stroll in San Martin and Place St. Nicolas across from Theater Colon brings to mind the feeling of exploring Parisian alleys from the 16th century.
* The ancient cemetery, La Recoleta, is one of the most-touristed destinations in Buenos Aires and one of the world’s most famous cemetery as it is also the burial place of Evita Peron. Originally it was a courtyard of a monastery, converted into a cemetery in 1822. With the spread of yellow fever at the end of the 18th century, many of the wealthy people of Buenos Aires moved to Recoleta neighborhood, and gradually the cemetery became the final resting graveyard of the wealthy and powerful people of the city. The sculptured buildings and turrets of the family vaults hint at the richness of lives of the people buried here.
* The Palermo area, which is divided to Palermo SoHo, Palermo Hollywood and Palermo Viejo, is a residential area with heavy cottonwood trees along the streets and a colorful concentration of new cafes, little piazzas, trendy restaurants, galleries and boutiques of young designers. This is the hub of the young and beautiful, an artistic suburb where you can easily find some of the most well known graffiti walls and murals in Buenos Aires.
La Boca area is one of Buenos Aires most-visited areas but also one with the highest level of crime. The area was once populated mostly by Italian immigrants but now it is the seat of the under-class. The main street in La Boca is called La Caminito and is characterized by a row of colorful buildings that once were Tango halls and brothels but are now turned into pizzerias, souvenir shops and touristic bars. Take a walk in La Caminito street, preferably during daylight.
* San Telmo Antique market on Sunday is a great opportunity to come across colorful characters, tango dancers, street vendors and street actors. San Telmo is considered the oldest quarter in Buenos Aires, filled with old churches, tile-decorated courtyards, pinnacles and domes. It is also called the tango district as there are quite a few tango halls in this area and milonga clubs. During the week this area is pretty quiet, so better plan your visit towards the weekend.
* Don’t skip Puerto Madero area. This is the city’s port area that used to be occupied with factories and warehouses; in recent years the industrial buildings have been replaced by luxury apartments that attract the young and affluent crowd. The area is considered now one of the trendiest and most exclusive areas of Buenos Aires. Walk across Puenta de la Mujer and don’t miss the Faena Hotel, designed by Philippe Starck, that feels like it was taken from one of Almadovar’s movies. Visit the neighborhood during the evening and dine in one of the bustling gourmet restaurants.
More recommendations:
Graffiti Mundo: Take a vibrant walking tour following graffiti artists in Buenos Aires’s neighborhoods
Tagui Restaurant: Fine Argentinian cuisine in one of the city’s best restaurants. Don’t let the graffiti-covered facade fool you: Reservations are a must.
Fundacion Proa: A series of galleries filled with natural light that taken together are one of the most interesting centers of contemporary South American art.
Eve Peron Museum: Located in Palermo, this museum follows the life of the most powerful woman in Argentina, Evita Peron.
This combination of a civilized European city with a Spanish Catalan sort of rudeness made me fall in love with this city immediately. It actually already started on the plane, just before landing, when I saw the twisted spiers of La Sagrada Familia
But let’s go back a few days ago. When I was still in Barcelona.
I spent five days in Barcelona mainly for work (photography) and partly to check some options of living there for a few weeks. I did some homework to know what I want to see, though when I travel and visit another city, I hardly if ever make any plans and prefer to go with the flow and find my own way back. My only Agenda was to take on Barcelona as much as possible, eat Tapas you can’t find anywhere in the world, follow the Arts of Picasso, Gaudi and my favorite Miro and feel like I was one of the actors in one of Almadovar movies.
and my Agenda worked!
I spent most of my time in Gracia neighborhood; This magical area between Avinguda Diagonal and Passeig de Gracia. For me, Gracia was the Barcelona equivalent to the West Village in New York, so in a way, I was a bit biased.
Gracia is, without a doubt, the playground or the backyard of Gaudi. In a short radius in the neighborhood, one can find the Casa Mila, Casa Batlló and the ‘will never be completed’ church, La Sagrada Familia. My important recommendation, which is valid everywhere in Barcelona is to keep your head up and eyes open, exploring the balconies with the colorful tiles, the paintings on the buildings, the sculpted rooftops and the good looking Spanish guys walking toward you in the streets. Of course I recommend to keep your eyes open on your bags and valuables because Barcelona is well known (unfortunately) for its streets muggers.
I stayed in 987 Barcelona, a cute and well designed boutique hotel, located right on Mallorca street. Like most of the streets in this area, Mallorca is such a pictorial street. A tree-lined street with several cafe’s, and most importantly, a bakery which sells delicious home-made cakes and chocolates. Do not let the front of the hotel fool you. This is not another building in a residential neighborhood. The hotel rooms look like they came out of any European design magazine and everything is full of chic and class, as only the Catalans know. There’s nothing like waking up every morning in a room with a huge window overlooking the street and smell the bread being baked in the bakery below.
Note to self: Do not even think you can see all of Barcelona in five days, by foot. As a typical New Yorker who walks a lot, I am often amused when I see a crowded tourist bus passing down Broadway. I promised myself that when I visit a city, I would never get on a tourist bus. Well…. I couldn’t keep my promises, and I found myself one morning on one of these buses. As someone who always prefers to walk the streets, I highly recommend to ride one of these buses at least once, to explore the city.
These buses can be found on Placa de Catalunya and all bus companies offer more or less the same routes, perhaps with minor changes in ways and turns. This is an excellent opportunity to reach the hills of Barcelona, Park Guell, Tibidabo, and the area of Sarria, an old neighborhood, a little further from the center. Wandering the alleys of Sarria made me feel like I’m in a picturesque rural town from old times. It was also during the Siesta time, so maybe that’s why….
No doubt that all the wandering in the streets have increased my appetite. I was still keeping my Agenda to continue and explore Barcelona, but also explore its food and eat.
Gracia is packed with great restaurants and Tapas bars. In fact, I think most of the well-designed and high end restaurants are concentrated in this neighborhood. Unfortunately, five days were not enough to sample and taste all the places I have marked to myself as a ‘must go’ and ‘must taste’ places, but the ones I did visit, were really worth it.
Moo restaurant in Hotel Omm, Principal restaurant, which are both located near Casa Mila, were a great choice. Combining the dining with a view of the city from Casa Mila’s rooftop at dusk was a winner!
Bar Lobo, with its long communal tables was also a great choice and alternative for late lunch or an early dinner. Watching the cute waiters and the people walking by while munching on Tapas and drinking red wine is a ‘must-do’.
Barcelona, like Tel Aviv and like New York, is a nocturnal city. One phone call to a friend who lives in the city for a few years now, and I’m all set with a long list of where to go and where to hang out. One of the first tips I got from him was that the night in Barcelona starts very late. But Way very late. 2 AM in the morning is usually the time when the action is really going on. But still. Barcelona is Barcelona and the Spanish are Spanish, and I found myself at a club downtown at 2AM in the morning. Few glasses of wine, and I don’t even need to look at the time anymore.
As for shopping, there are two types of stores I always love to visit and it doesn’t matter where I travel. I always enjoy visiting Book stores (with a preference for Art Books, photography and design) and Lingerie stores (with a preference to Bras and cute underwear I don’t see in Victoria’s Secret)
I recommend Oysho, where I could find a huge range of bras, underwear and pajamas with a pampering European touch. The store is located in Passeig de Gracia, but can be found in other locations in the city.
The book store, Sant Jordi, I found at the Gothic Quarter. It is a magical store which belongs to a father and son, and gave me the feeling I was in the Cemetery of Forgotten books, as described in the book ‘The Shadow of the Wind’. The store holds Art books, photography, poetry, architecture, literature, etc. The owner, a Spanish man with an impressive knowledge, can trace any book a customer is looking for.
It is quite hard to sum up such a great trip in one post or fa ew pictures. I can still hear the rattling noise of the Tapas’ small plates, mixed with people’s laughs while walking on Mallorca Street in Gracia. Looking up just to see the Casa Milla and other beautiful buildings. I will do it again and again in a heartbeat.
“…Love isn’t finding a perfect person. It’s seeing an imperfect person perfectly…”
Saatchi Gallery, London, April 2010
I was in Saatchi Gallery the other day with my mom, while we got stuck for extra few days due to the volcano eruption in Iceland. Not that it is a bad thing to get stuck in London (thank God we have a family there and a place to stay) but the uncertainty of when we can go back to New York was quite devastating. Therefore, we both found that indulging ourselves in some Art, was the best way to forget about the World’s biggest drama at that time. My mom was getting her coffee at the gallery cafeteria, when I was taking this picture. I was drawn to the man’s socks and to the woman’s feet that didn’t touch the rails. Other than that, I have no idea how this couple look like.
