Dan Ziskie

East of Broadway

October 6 - 30, 2011

East Broadway is located within Chinatown near the Manhattan Bridge, but is much less visited by tourists than the more famous Bowery just to the north. Many recent arrivals from China come to the area around East Broadway first. It is one of the few surviving ethnic communities in Manhattan, but as real estate prices continue to rise in Manhattan, it is under the threat of gentrification.

Dan Ziskie's project, "East of Broadway," grew out of a trip the artist made to China in 2005. "Here was my chance to go to 'China' again, and as often as I wanted, without looking conspicuous with my camera, as I did as a Westerner in China proper. The differences between my own country and China interested me. These Chinese people were not in China, but in America, beginning to adapt to our Western culture. This project is an effort to discover how that process works."

Originally from Hamtramck, Michigan, Dan Ziskie is a Manhattan-based photographer. Ziskie began photographing in the early 1970s in Chicago, where he also worked as an assistant to the commercial photographer Curt Burkhart. His current work focuses on what is revealed socially and culturally in urban public spaces. Ziskie's photographs have been exhibited at Photo Center NW, Seattle; the Center for the Photographic Image, Philadelphia; and images from "East of Broadway" appeared in The New York Times.