Martha Rosler: The Bowery

The famous New York neighbourhood is the focus of this renowned American artist’s series, ‘The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems’, 1974-75, presented here by Afterall at Central St Martins. Comprising twenty-five photographic prints of sites frequented by alcoholics, paired with linguistic terms for a drunk, Rosler, a native New Yorker, exposes the reality of the Bowery’s harsh social landscape.