New York City / Photography
Hardcover, 11 x 8.25 inches, 144 pages, 54 black-and-white and
50 four-color images
ISBN: 978-1-57687-432-5
$35.00
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Do Not Give Way to Evil
Photographs by: Lisa Kahane
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The Bronx had almost stopped burning by 1979. The intensity
and extent of the devastation permeated the landscape. It
was an awesome mess, not just another neighborhood, but
another realm, visible but incomprehensible. The Bronx came
undone in a confluence of unfortunate circumstances: the life
cycle of community, rampant city planning, economic change,
racism, poverty, failed hopes, drugs, crime, abandonment,
counterproductive government response. It was destroyed for
profit. The entire story has yet to be told.
A friend suggested to photographer Lisa Kahane that she
record it for a time when it would be a memory, which was
then impossible to imagine. The ruins of the immediate past
overwhelmed any idea of a future. Ironically, Kahane had a
good time in the Bronx. People smiled and said, “Throw me
a photo!” Few objected to having their picture taken and no
one tried to take her camera away. They wanted their story
told. Any discomfort the camera might inflict was nothing
compared to what they’d endured.
The result, Do Not Give Way to Evil: Photographs of the
South Bronx, 1979–1987, is an extraordinary document
of devastation and rejuvenation, as Kahane records the
first seeds of rebuilding. Throughout this desolate world,
the people live alongside abandoned buildings and debrisstrewn
lots, carr ying on their business with civic pride.
Though the buildings may be ghosts of their former selves,
the spirit of the people holds strong.
Lisa Kahane, a working photographer for over 25 years,
specializes in documentary work and portraiture. A native
New Yorker, educated at Barnard College, Columbia
University, and the New York Studio School, she has worked
on location in Europe and in Central and South America.
She spent time on all four sides of the conflict in the
former Yugoslavia. In addition to solo shows depicting art
and culture in the 80s, her work was featured in Urban
Mythologies: The Bronx Represented Since the 1960s at
the Bronx Museum and included in documentation for The
American Century at The Whitney Museum. Her photographs
are in private collections as well as the permanent collections
of the New York Public Library, the Fales Library at NYU,
and the Library of Congress. She runs a photography and
autobiography workshop for kids at risk.
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