New exhibit on NYC photographer Bill Cunningham to open during New York Fashion Week
Credit: ESI Design
A new installation dedicated to the life of legendary New York City fashion photographer Bill Cunningham will open this month. The immersive exhibit, called “Experience The Times of Bill Cunningham,” will feature large-scale reproductions of the photographer’s famous photos, audio and video segments, and artifacts, like his trademark Biria bicycle and his blue worker’s jacket. Coinciding with the start of New York Fashion Week, the exhibit opens at the South Street Seaport on September 12 and runs through October 30.
Designated a “living landmark” in 2009 by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, Cunningham worked as a fashion photographer for the New York Times for nearly 40 years, traveling across the city by bicycle and snapping photos of people on the street. He died in 2016 at the age of 87.
The exhibit, inspired by the 2020 documentary The Times of Bill Cunningham, brings the photographer’s career to life, with experiences like a staircase where outfits of visitors will digitally transform into a fashion statement “worthy of a Cunningham photo” and other multi-sensory installations.
According to a press release, visitors can pose on a simulated city crosswalk or sit on a bench made of milk crates and a foam mattress, “a nod to the photographer’s bed in his Carnegie Hall studio apartment.”
Designed by ESI Design, the team behind the new Statue of Liberty Museum, and co-presented by Live Rocket, the exhibit takes up two stories and measures 18,000 square feet, with six distinct spaces.
The eight-week-long installation opens on September 12 at 26 Fulton Street. Tickets cost $30 and proof of vaccination is needed to enter, as required by the city.
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