Extra Extra!! Down These Mean Streets Newspaper Now Available Online

A million thank yous to all who came out for my opening and have supported this work. I owe you the world. For all those who were not able to make the opening and want a newspaper for $5.





Down These Mean Streets Newspaper
16 page Tabloid Newspaper
8 color pages, 8 black & white pages
Featuring images, journal entries, maps, and notes.
Signed by the artist.
$5.00





THANK YOU!!!!!

Tonight Is Finally Today!!!

After many weeks of sleepless nights working, planning and preparing for tonight, I am very excited for the opening of my first solo show at Michael Mazzeo Gallery. Please join me for the opening reception tonight! You don't want to miss this one folks, I promise you.

Tonight!
Thursday June 10th, 6-8pm
"Down These Mean Streets"
Michael Mazzeo Gallery
526 West 26th Street, Suite 209
NY NY 10001
212.741.6599
www.michaelmazzeo.com
www.willsteacy.com


On display will be:

-22 photographs, some of which I have never exhibited before.

-An installation that highlights my working process with journals, contact sheets, maps, research notes, newspaper clippings, found objects and the wrench I carried in my back pocket.





-A signed newspaper made specifically for this exhibition that will be available at the opening for $5.



-A special limited edition print will also be available with a signed newspaper for $50....get em while they last, these have been flying out.

Edition Details:
$50
"Tony, San Francisco, 2010"
Edition of 50
Signed and numbered on back of print
Archival Pigment Print
Image size: 6.5" X 8"
Paper size: 8" X 10"





To learn more about Down These Mean Streets please check out these recent online features:

-Daylight Magazine Podcast

-Conscientious Extended

Solo Show At Michael Mazzeo Gallery

I am very pleased to announce a solo show of my project Down These Mean Streets opening at Michael Mazzeo Gallery on Thursday June 10th, 6-8pm (526 W 26th, NYC).

The exhibition will include brand new photographs I have never shown before as well as a special limited edition newspaper (available at the opening) that is part of a larger installation on display exploring my working process through journals, research notes, contact sheets, shot lists, influences and maps.

This 3 year long project in which I have walked at night from the airport to central business district of American cities examines the collapse of a post-industrialist American inner city as years of neglect have left our cities with limited resources to fix themselves and neighborhoods to crumple. By addressing the overwhelming loss and despair that prevail in our urban communities my intent is to reveal an intimate look at what our cities have become and provide a foundation from which change and plans for the future can be made as problems and issues cannot be solved if they are not first identified; we must look inward at ourselves.

Watch Treme Tonight!

Don't forget to watch Treme tonight.



Very excited to have a bunch of photographs in the opening sequence of the show and when David Simon says things like this you know it's gonna be fucking brilliant. There are only a few whom I trust to dive in and tell the story of a post Katrina New Orleans and David Simon is surely at the top of that list.


“New Orleans to me … it’s a triumph of American urban culture. It’s the best an American city can be, and also the worst in a lot of ways. It has created a culture that has gone around the world. If you look at what our greatest export would be — culturally or politically or socially — from the American experiment, you’d have to put African-American music probably at the top of the list. You can be anywhere from Katmandu to Johannesburg and you walk into a bar and if they’re playing a tape machine they’ve got Michael Jackson or (John) Coltrane or Otis Redding or something (playing). That whole notion of African rhythms and the pentatonic scale meeting European instrumentation and arrangement comes from about 12 square blocks in New Orleans. So this is a city that’s essential in the American psyche, and yet we all witnessed the near-destruction of it. It was the closest thing to the destruction of an American city since the San Francisco earthquake. It’s coming back on its own terms as best as it can, with a lot of concern from some quarters, but a lot of indifference from much of the country. And that’s a fascinating story to me. In a way, ‘The Wire’ implied what was at stake with the American city, but ‘Treme’ is actually an examination of what it is — what living as disparate, different people compacted in an urban area can offer.”
-David Simon

Treme

I am thrilled to have a bunch of photographs from my work in New Orleans featured in the opening sequence of David Simon's new HBO series Treme which premieres April 11. Everyone who reads this blog probably knows how much of a Wire fan I am and how much I admire and respect David Simon and it is a great honor to be a part of his new series. Everyone who reads this blog probably also knows how much New Orleans means to me. Sometimes it is difficult for me to express in words the way I feel about New Orleans without going on and on, but I tell people who have never been there before that I have been all over America and New Orleans is unlike any other city I have been and every time I am there it feels more and more like home and gets harder and harder to leave. Simon eloquently describes this feeling in a recent Times article and it is fucking dead on:


“There's a thing about being capable of a great moment. This city is capable of moments unlike any moments you’ll ever experience in life. To see an Indian come down the street in full regalia on St. Joseph’s Night on an unlit street of messed-up shotgun houses and one burned-out car, and he’s the most beautiful thing on the planet, and everything around him is falling down. It’s a glorious instant of human endeavor. It’s duende from the Spanish, chills on the back of your neck, and then the next minute it’s gone. Lots of American places used to make things. Detroit used to make cars. Baltimore used to make steel and ships. New Orleans still makes something. It makes moments. I don’t mean that to sound flippant, and I don’t mean it to sound more or less than what it is, but they’re artists with a moment, they can take a moment and make it into something so transcendent that you’re not quite sure that it happened or that you were a part of it.”

A big thank you Karen for making this all happen.

The New Yorker Fiction Image Request

Happy to have an image in The New Yorker fiction section this week.



I love getting The New Yorker fiction image request emails. The descriptions of the image they are looking to accompany the writing are always so much fun to read and so often the most perfect and beautiful thing I will read that day. Here are some of my favorite New Yorker image request descriptions from recent years. I originally made a story out of the selections which perhaps I will post later, but there were just too many good ones to leave out. Winogrand once said, "There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described."


-A man walking a white pit bull in the city – ideally with one front leg missing
-A woman hiding behind a door - ideally with a red umbrella
-A charred grilled cheese sandwich – the bread is blackened, but the cheese hardly melted.
-A man smoking a cigarette outside looking at the stars
-A woman’s shoes covered with snow standing on a braided rug
-South end of the strip where there are cheap motels, fast-food, pawnshops, bail bonds, storefront churches, sprawling parking lots – kids hanging out there
-A table with handmade animals for sale – including a giraffe, and a Noah’s arc.
-A woman in her 40’s – details of aging skin on the face, pale, drawn, covered with too much makeup – heavy blush, dark lipstick – deep reds and purples
-A boat crossing a lake (ideally Prussian blue), either in rain & rough weather or good weather
-A chainsaw in a forest
-Details of female hands drinking coffee in a diner
-A cigarette extinguished under a silver high heel
-A sexy scene seen through a keyhole
-A woman’s hand extended with a blue pill
-A tall, skinny red head outside in the snowstorm in the beams of a trucks headlights – the snow catching in her red hair glowing in the backlight like a halo
-The hotel receptionist behind the bright green glow of the computer screen and with blue lacquered fingernails
-A woman in a wraparound red dress & red heeled toeless sandals on a dusty Irish road
-A Holiday Inn sign in a snow storm on the side of a road – both with and without a “No Vacancy” sign – dark or dusk
-Red roses on a coffin

From The FotoFest Opening

Me and the mayor of Houston.

FotoFest

Off to Houston for my show at the Fotofest Biennial. I am showing 17 photographs from Down These Mean Streets in Whatever Was Splendid: New American Photographs curated by Aaron Schuman. If you are in Houston come to the opening reception on Friday March 12, 8pm at Vine Street Studios, 1113 Vine Street, Houston or you can find me at Poison Girl conducting business. Then off to travel Texas and find out what America thinks about health care, among other things.

Magnum Expression Award

Im pretty happy to be a finalist (winner announced mid Oct.) in the Magnum Expression Award. Who would have thought this Philly cuz who is rough around the edges would be recognized by both Aperture and Magnum in the same year, my two favorite photo organizations. I am honored and excited.

Down These Mean Streets Featured In Harper's

I am very happy to have my photographs featured in the August issue of Harper's. It is always so refreshing and exciting when you meet with someone and they totally understand your work and they zoom in immediately to the heart and guts of the project. This is exactly what happened when I showed Stacey Clarkson, the art director at Harper's, my work. The images she selected for the portfolio feature are some of my favorites and the ones that I feel speak to the larger issues that the project addresses. Thank you Stacey! Go pick up an issue today, or any other magazine, stop clicking and start flipping. Remember that feeling when you lick the tip of your finger to turn a page?

Come See What Everyone Has Been Talking About

Come see what everyone has been talking about. Come see what photography on crack and steroids looks like. Come see this journey I have made through our country's streets. Come see what I have given myself to. Come see what I now give to you. Come see what I promise you is worth seeing. This is it folks. Right this way. I hope to see you there.


-Conscientious
-A Photo Editor
-Rachel Hulin
-MTV
-Bomblog
-Inside The Loop
-We Can't Paint
-Jake Stangel
-Art Most Fierce
-Eyes of Artists
-Slow Century Magazine
-Justin James Reed

Thank you my friends for all of the support, kind words and fuel for that fire.


Down These Mean Streets

Photographs by Will Steacy

Opening Reception TOMORROW NIGHT!

Thursday June 4th, 6-8pm
Gulf & Western Gallery
New York University
721 Broadway
NYC

It Has Been A Wild Ride

Please join me for the solo exhibition of Down These Mean Streets. Some how I made it through all this. When I got the phone call early one morning last year and the voice on the other end said congrats you won the Tierney Fellowship this year, I was like, "Shit, I can't believe they gave it to me, they must be as crazy as I am!" Then I thought, ahhh, what a gift, this is going to be a great fucking year." It's been a long wild ride and I must say I am pretty fucking proud of the images that will be on those walls, my heart and soul and everything I got is on that wall. Come on out and have a beer with me.


Opening Reception Thursday June 4th, 6-8pm

Gulf & Western Gallery
New York University
721 Broadway
NYC

Opening Night (My Favorite Cassavetes Flick)

Some flicks from the Tierney show hanging courtesy of my intern Davis. Opening is tonight.

Thursday May 14, 5-7pm
The Tobacco Warehouse
26 New Dock Street
Dumbo, Brooklyn

New York Photo Festival

A selection of images from Down These Mean Streets will be up at New York Photo Festival as part of the Tierney Fellows Exhibition. The opening reception is:

Thursday May 14, 5-7pm
The Tobacco Warehouse
26 New Dock Street
Dumbo, Brooklyn




I am on the final lap of this work. Once the arm heals, one or two more cities need some walking. This project has worn me down and at times I have felt so broken down. After each trip I am not just physically exhausted, but mentally and spiritually, at times I question how I can go on. It's been hard on the soul. I have never been more alone. The killers, hustlers, prostitutes, homeless, insane, addicts, the bad dreams. Before I went out each night, I stood in the mirror, looked myself in the eye, asked myself how bad I want it, then punched myself in the face repeatedly to get hype, every night was a title fight, every night alone in the streets. But I'm grinding till I die. Why haven't you taken my life yet? I got a stone where my heart should be.

"Down these mean streets must walk a man who is not himself mean, who is untarnished and unafraid"
- Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder"

Everything Dies Baby That's A Fact, But Maybe Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back

My new project DOWN THESE MEAN STREETS is now up on my website.




Atlantic City

"Well, they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night
Now, they blew up his house, too
Down on the boardwalk they're gettin ready for a fight
Gonna see what them racket boys can do

Now, there's trouble bustin in from outta state
And the d.a. can't get no relief
Gonna be a rumble out on the promenade
And the gamblin commissions hangin on by the skin of his teeth

Well now, everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City

Well, I got a job and tried to put my money away
But I got debts that no honest man can pay
So I drew what I had from the central trust
And I bought us two tickets on that coast city bus

Now, baby, everything dies, honey, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back...

Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold
But with you forever I'll stay
Were goin out where the sands turnin to gold
Put on your stockins baby, `cause the nights getting cold
And maybe everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back

Now, I been lookin for a job, but it's hard to find
Down here it's just winners and losers and don't
Get caught on the wrong side of that line
Well, Im tired of comin out on the losin end
So, honey, last night I met this guy and Im gonna
Do a little favor for him

Well, I guess everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe evrything that dies someday comes back..."

-The Fucking Boss

The Stare Down

Whether it worked or not I dont know. Trying to get that tension, that juice... Sarah and I definitely had a fun time.

Goddamn, I'm Starving And I Just Ate

I'm still in Detroit, but this is what's up in Boston...

The Steak And The Lobster

I recently did some stuff for the show called Viewfinders. I dread listening to myself, but they did a great job editing out the ummms and fragmented sentences, thanks guys for the wonderful opportunity.

Mentioned. Honorably.

Down These Mean Streets

In my new on-going series "Down These Mean Streets" I examine fear and the abandonment of America's inner cities. Photographing only at night with a large format view camera, I work in a set routine by walking from the airport to the central business district of each city I photograph. My focus is the parts of the city you don’t want to be in at night; the part of town you drive through - not to - with your windows rolled up and doors locked. The guts and history of the American city lie between the airport and city center as a portrait of the modern day American inner city has gone missing. America has turned its back on cities through years of abandonment and neglect allowing neighborhoods to crumble with no local economy, a public education system that barely meets requirements, a low income housing disaster, few options for proper nutrition and health care. Violence and drugs reign, and there seems to be little or no way out as survival becomes a number one priority.

Fueled by America's preoccupation with homeland security and protecting our country from foreign forces that we have lost sight of what it is we are for fighting for. We have forgotten our own cities, neighborhoods and streets. By addressing the overwhelming loss and despair that prevail in our urban communities my aim is to reveal an intimate look at what our cities have become as problems and issues cannot be solved if they are not first identified. America is at a crossroads as we are waist deep in an economic crisis, still at war and trying to find our place within a rapidly changing global society. This project is a contribution to the conversation of our country’s future and it demands that we look inward at ourselves and what we have allowed to occur.


I will be showing a sneak preview of this work at Michael Mazzeo Gallery as part of the exhibition titled "Art Fair." Please join me for the opening reception this Wednesday, March 4th, 6-8pm, 526 W 26th Street, NYC.