Joel Meyerowitz

During an immersive exhibition this winter at the Polka Gallery, the grand master of color tells his story by opening the doors to his work... and his studio. Combining photography and video, « Immersion » invites viewers to follow him and dive into the heart of his universe. 

A dialogue in images, between memories and reflections, on his life as a photographer, his anecdotes, his way of seeing the world through light. « Joel and the Polka Gallery have been collaborating for ten years. Ten years of trust, discussions, and friendship, which we wanted to celebrate not with a simple retrospective, but with a unique experience: a lively encounter with the artist. Within our walls, Joel Meyerowitz himself guides the viewer from the beginning to the end of the journey. Visitors will discover his works, of course, but also the rare bond that connects a photographer to his gallery, » explains Adélie de Ipanema, founder and director of the Polka Gallery. 

This « immersion » was made possible thanks to the collaboration of producer-director Florent Lacaze and the Leica brand, for which Joel Meyerowitz is an ambassador. It is designed to offer a new, intimate perspective on Joel Meyerowitz’s work. « Photography is like food, I need it every day » he says. « Having a camera with you is like having a constant invitation for surprises to happen. » The street is indeed a place of surprises. Joel, tall, slim and dressed in black, continues at 87 to zigzag through it like a child, seeming to dance among the passers-by. 

From London to New York, if asked which he prefers to photograph, Meyerowitz cannot choose. Each has its own rhythm. What interests him is that his images can become a reflection of a culture and an era. Like that famous image taken in Paris almost 60 years ago, where a passerby falls at the exit of a subway station in the middle of the crowd watching him... While Joel learned speed, technique, and how to handle his camera on the streets he loves so much, he then discovered another way of photographing. In the 1970s, the Bronx native set aside his 35mm camera to explore large format photography. His goal: to better understand color. « Color is what has always fascinated me. That’s where I started. Black and white was cheaper and easier to develop, but color was life. » This new format will allow him to fully master this world of nuances and light. 

At Cape Cod in Massachusetts, he explored the slowness of the landscapes. And his perspective changed: the apparent banality of everyday scenes became a real subject of study, a mixture of meditation and contemplation that would give rise, in 1978, to Cape Light, originally a simple exhibition catalog, which would become a seminal book in the history of photography. 

One example among many: « Roseville Cottages, Truro, 1976 » one of the first images taken by Meyerowitz with his Deardorff. Nothing happens, and yet everything is revealed: houses, a parked car, a telephone booth. The mundane becomes an exploration of time, light, and color. « In Cape Cod, I learned that time brought light to darkness. » 

Talking with Joel means understanding how a work of art is born. He shares his experience with a mantra borrowed from Mandela: we always learn from our mistakes. From the streets to the contemplation of light, from his portraits to the still lifes captured in the studios of Morandi or Cézanne, to the photos that became the archives of Ground Zero, where Joel captured the history of post-9/11. « Immersion » reminds us that what makes a great photographer is someone who sees, even before looking, and that, as Meyerowitz says, « ordinary life is not so ordinary when you put a frame around it. »