New York Life

About the Artist

New York Life: Images After the Fall
Photography by Gerard Van der Leun
Harlow’s Fine Art, 332 Forest, Suite 7
Laguna Beach, Calif. 92651
949/376-6075
February 29, 2004 through May 2004

Gerard Van der Leun, Lucia, Highway 1, California

Gerard Van der Leun (b. 1945) grew up in Paradise, California. He denies ever pushing his younger brother Tom over that ledge.

Following some radical years at UC Berkeley in the sixties, he created and published two magazines in San Francisco, CITY MAGAZINE and the at-the-time-controversial ORGAN.

He was also Directory of Drama and Literature for KPFA-FM in Pacifica, Calif.; the first Director of Communications for the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and an early and influential member of the pioneering online community The Well.

Over a 30-year period in New York – with extended stints in London, Paris, and Portugal – Van der Leun was senior editor and director of Paperback Publishing at Houghton Mifflin; a writer and editor for PENTHOUSE magazine; European publisher for OMNI magazine; and author of two books: The Rules of the Net and The Quotable Sherlock Holmes. His articles on technology and the Internet have appeared in WIRED and TIME magazines, among others; are used in college courses to this day; and have been widely reproduced online, as has been his poetry.

A longtime photographer, Van der Leun became even more obsessed with documenting New York City after 9/11. “Sometime in January of 2002, I knew I was leaving but I didn’t know how or when,” he said. “And I wanted to take as much of it with me as I could when it was time to go.” So he spent weeks and months wandering around the city taking over 10,000 pictures.

“I took pictures of signs, people, parks, buildings – everything. I wanted to have a record that was more than just my personal snapshots. They used to say that the camera steals the soul. If so, that’s what I wanted to do.”

His photos capture, with stunning immediacy, a recovering city and its inhabitants in all their pain, joy, strangeness, and splendor.

Gerard Van der Leun now lives in Laguna Beach, California with his wife and stepson, where he publishes the increasingly popular weblog American Digest. an online chronicle of unapologetic, biased, and erudite views on politics, culture, and the amazing diversity of American life and beyond.

New York Life: Images After the Fall opens with an artist's reception, Sunday, February 29, 2004, 12-4 p.m., at Harlow's Fine Art in Laguna Beach. The show runs through April 2004.

Harlow's Fine Art
332 Forest Ave., Suite 7
Forest Avenue Mall
Laguna Beach, California

For more information, contact:
Ashley LaJune, Gallery Owner
949/376-6075
infobites@aol.com

www.NewYorkLifeImages.com

Gerard Van der Leun, San Francisco, 2002

That was then, this is now.

You only have to spend a few minutes on Van der Leun’s website, American Digest, to get a pretty clear idea as to his political and cultural leanings. But as these images from a 1966 issue of The Saturday Evening Post attest, it wasn’t always that way.

Of several ‘Letters to the Editor” printed in response to this article, the one that follows was written by Van der Leun’s father, and reflects the timeless concern – sigh – of parents everywhere.