Nominated for a National Magazine Award, our second print issue features Hilton Als on Prince's Eyes, How Adderall Changed America, Sex with Neanderthals, New Fiction by Isle McElroy, Ordering Elements, and more.

Let Pioneer Works come to you. Subscribe to our newsletter.

PW Closure 4/24-4/26

Pioneer Works's galleries and garden are closed to the public from Thursday, April 24th to Saturday, April 26th for 

Bottom [Test]

Own the Archive Sale

This week only, we’re heavily discounting our #PWPress publications to make way for new projects. Find artist-created books for $5, $10, & $15—sales raised from the PW Store are reinvested into funding new, ambitious projects by emerging and underrepresented artists and writers.

Gift Guide

From November 28 through December 14, take 20% off products in the Gift Guide with code: ULTRAFESTIVE. 

Ragas 

Pioneer Works will be closed for normal gallery hours this October 14 & 15 for Ragas Live Festival 2023, learn more 

June closing

Please note, Pioneer Works will be closed for daily admissions until July 7th. We 

open for ticketed programs, view our calendar 

Newsletter Signup

Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test 

Bottom

Celebrate 10 years of Pioneer Works by shopping the PW Press Archive Sale! Through October 31, take 10% off Pioneer Works Press items with code 

Flash Flood Closures

Building Closures Due to Flash Floods

Due to weather conditions, Pioneer Works is suspending open gallery hours for Friday, September 29. MHYSA's performance has been rescheduled for Sunday, October 1, with all tickets being transferred to the new date.

April PW Store Banner

Shop the PW Store Spring Sale!

 for the entire month of April and receive an automatic 20% off books, records, apparel, and more. Members save 35%—learn more about membership 

Aura Closure 5/27

Please note:

 will close early at 5pm on Saturday, May 27. Learn more and plan your visit 

CEO Announcement

Just Announced: Pioneer Works Names Mara Manus Chief Executive Officer

The Board of Directors of Pioneer Works is pleased to announce that Mara Manus, former Executive Director for New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), has been appointed as the organization’s new Chief Executive Officer. 

We are grateful for your engagement and support of Pioneer Works over the last year. Now through December 31st, we’re fundraising to meet our end of year goal and close out 2024.

85% of our programming is free or accessibly-priced and we rely on our community of supporters to make that possible. Give now to ensure that we can continue nurturing artists and audiences through 2025.


Support our Annual Appeal

Annual Appeal [Action]

PW Closed 11/11

We're closed all day Friday, November 11 for our annual Village Fête Benefit. To learn more about the After Party and get tickets, visit 

Donate [Test]

[TEST] Segmented Signup Form 

Let Pioneer Works come to you                                    

Our galleries and garden are closed to the public today for a United Sounds NYC Festival 2024. Learn more about the festival 

Closure Announcement [TOP]

We’re making Pioneer Works accessible to all! While our building is temporarily closed until this September, we are continuing to host offsite programming. See upcoming programs 

PW Newsletter

[Test] [Dev] Modal Detailed Form

[TEST] Top Preview 

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

Top Banner [Broadcast]

 takes place at PW to celebrate this digital experiment and the artists, scientists, musicians, writers, and readers who’ve made it possible. RSVP 

Aura Closure 6/3

 will close early at 5pm on Saturday, June 3. Learn more and plan your visit 

[Test] [Dev] Top Text

Test Header

We're pleased to announce the first major renovation of Pioneer Works! To accommodate the first phase of our construction, we're temporarily relocating to 133 Imlay Street opening in Spring 2022.

Early Closure 5/10/23

Due to programming, Pioneer Works will be closed to the public on Wednesday, May 10. We will be open from Thursday through Sunday for the remainder of the week. Learn more and plan your visit 

Sound Check Closure

Early Closure

Pioneer Works will close at 4 pm on Thursday, April 10th in preparation for the 

15th Annual Ende Tymes Festival of Noise and Sonic Liberation

On the occasion of Alex Harsley’s exhibition 

, Pioneer Works joins the artist and his daughter Kendra Krueger at The 4th Street Photo Gallery in the East Village for a glimpse into the inspirations and processes that make up his practice. The exhibition comprises a suite of photographs dating from the 1950s to the present day, and also features a video and sound installation titled The First Light (2000-2020)—an experimental endeavor that alludes to the cosmological origins of time and energy.

Introduction by Pioneer Works curator Vivian Chui

In 1971, Alex Harsley founded the organization Minority Photographers, Inc. as a way to provide resources for a cohort of emerging photographers who frequented the East Village and the Lower East Side. For the first five years of its existence, the artist self-published a newsletter alongside his longtime partner Shelagh Krueger, who provided administrative support to the organization and lovingly typeset each issue. Disseminated by mail to a list that numbered in the thousands—Krueger jokes that she remains known at the local USPS office, still to this day—the newsletters became a primary source of information about the happenings of a then-burgeoning photography scene in New York City.

Far more than an advertising tool for upcoming workshops and field trips, Harsley’s newsletters functioned as an outlet for him to document exhibitions taking place elsewhere in the city, to further engage with his community, and, at times, to air his grievances about the many trials and tribulations that come with fundraising for an independent arts organization. Most issues began with a recurring column titled “THE PERSON, THE CAMERA, AND THE IMAGE,” wherein the artist not only reflected on the organization itself but also ruminated on human perception, the surrounding world, and the state of contemporary photography as he saw it.

Kendra Krueger, the pair’s daughter, has recently embarked on an endeavor to archive the newsletters alongside Harsley’s lifework. To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Minority Photographers, Inc., Broadcast has selected four excerpts from the column—viewable below, transcribed with the original spellings and punctuations.

First of all, we must proceed to understand the meaning behind the word photography and the function of the mind in relating to this reality. We all see things on many levels relating to our general past which has played an important role in our basic existence, such as knowing that fire and water serve two basic functions. Through instinct we have learned to use these two elements. In fact, we have reached a point where these are merely taken for granted, such as the mind of the individual. We all seek and strive for something in time. Very rarely do the things we seek shine in the light of time. In rare instances something totally new is created. Then the creation is shown off like a toy to all people. The means of doing this is through the various mediums of photograph, which reaches into the many psychic levels of imagination. Recognition is the key factor. We have been all taught to rely on this. Certain things are photographed in color and others in black & white when the details of reality produces a confusion of many colors that is translated through the optical transfer of the senses. Many studies have been set aside to probe this medium. Out of this study many things have been learned about the process involving the perception of vision. Photographic artists have long been aware of this process though they haven’t been able to use the things they know because of the lack of recognition on the part of the people in the outside world.

First before we continue our trip through this tri-stimulus reality, a level of recognition must be built up with an absolute constant that will allow us the freedom to think without the use of prior thoughts with conflicting objectives to gain an adequate fingerhold on this mountain built on complex thoughts. We must understand light and the properties that it interacts with. Light as we know it today travels basically at one speed in time and it is seen in variable gradient composed of an infinite number of colors when it is reflected from matter. Light is made up of particles called protons whose atomic weight varies with the kinetic energy that it carries which allows it to span through many dimensions including our own time. Since we live in a spectrum with a very high decay rate the perception of time and light based on a system of many interference methods must be forgotten and on this level of recognition we will proceed. Now as we look through this ancient instrument called a camera we begin to understand the formation of time and light, i.e. (shutter and diaphragm) we will try to understand the medium which exists and separates the two which is the mind of the individual. This subtle active medium governs the active stimuli it receives by reason and judgement which can be put on the platform with the space time differential.


The modern day photographer really has it made. Automatic lenses that focus for you, light meters that dial in the proper exposure, cameras that fit into your pocket, lenses that range from ultra wide angel to telephoto and on and on and on. I can’t help but to think about two pioneers, “oops,” three pioneers in photography. The first Nicephore Niepce and his brother Claude who held the key to the secret of photography, that is they provided a working system for the other two pioneers in photography. The other two pioneers were Louis Jaques Mande Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot (contributing), most of you are aware of these names without really being aware of the involved story surrounding these names. Especially their contributing part in bringing phorography into its own. All three were concerned with a workable system to get a permanent image of reality, though very little information, if any, is available today. In the work they bring to being about yesterday one can begin to conside all the fancy tools, that is equipment, that is available to bring this about, such as light meters that give you readings in almost total darkness, lenses that encompass a viewing area of 360 °. It seems like one important part which is the most important part has been forgotten. That is the film, an important area of thought to be considered since it seems to be the weaker link in the chain in duplicating reality. If a light meter is able to give you a reading in almost total darkness will the film also be able to register an image or even better will you be able to set the camera speed for the length of time as shown by the light meter, especially if the light meter calls for a speed and range of say 2 minutes and some of you technical minded people will think in terms of the film failing at this long exposure time, which is generally referred to as reciprocity. Also one must consider the wide range of films on the market. What I mean are single purpose films. With all the technology that’s available why not try to do what the old pioneers dreamed up, that is duplicating reality as it exists in real time. Many other pioneers who some how or another have been forgotten or not even known at all, who sought to explore the concept of reality as it existed in the looking glass. One pioneer was Gabriel Lippman who was working on a system of 3 dimensional photography on a 2 dimensional plane. His system and figures wasn’t really feasible during his time because the necessary technology that his system required wasn’t there. He imagined photographing a scene, duplicating it on a 2 dimensional plane and having it come off in the individuals mind as a real time situation.

Today this system that he thought up and devised has gone through many changes and to an extend is totally unrecognizable. This new system of photography is called holography and is an indirect system on a reversal psychological process. What is meant by this is the system that Gabriel brought into existence required a huge amount of reflected light and the system that’s used today uses this process is a reverse manner. That is an image is recorded by reflecting lazer light off of reality (subject being photographed) and the film that’s available today is used as a recording medium. If this recording medium was replaced by his medium one would begin to understand where photography is today. The medium that he used was grainless, which meant that the noise level of the recording medium was almost at a total minimum. What is meant by noise level is the amount of irregularities that inhibit the individual from seeing the true image.

If you’re into the photographic arts you’ve probably heard about A.D. Coleman. If you haven’t he’s one of this country’s main photographic arts critics, who writes for various photographic publications and also the N.Y. TIMES, an influencial tabloid.

Sometime ago A.D. Wrote a review of one of my shows stating that I was going through a change and was striking out in many directions who’s ultimate fusion was unknown. Unknown to him at that time was the changes he to was to go through. As of this writing A.D. is 29 years old, his personal life has undergone many radical changes.

A.D. got his start in the photographic writing field in the latter part of the 60s up until 1972, when he got to the crest of the wave there was a noticeable difference by those who were following him closely, which began to appear in his writing. Before that he was a very prolific writer who roamed at the will of nature. Many of you probably remember the generation of the 60s. Have you everasked yourself whatever happened to the flower generation and those who were seeking to bring a new consciousness to their immediate reality and those of others. It seems as though most experienced a problem on this level and got very hung up with their own conscious reality which sapped their will to understand and relate to others. In this instance, the individual, mainly A.D., who is an artist whose works, no matter how directed, influences a la large number of people and perhaps this is necessary since many of his generation are undergoing personal internal change. As an artist myself, though of less stature, I realize what effect this change has on the creative artist and probably to others. A couple of months before A.D. gave up his column in the VILLAGE VOICE small signals began to appear in his writing which to me and probably to others, were signs of distress. At present time A.D. is reframing his life and it seems as though his writing has also undergone a dramatic change. He no longer covers the entire photographic field. His writing is directed towards the status quo of photography, which is the Museum of Modern Art, which he sees as the guiding light in the art field. As a friend of A.D. and a photographer that is involved in trying to bring the recognition to lesser known photographers, a question to this direction is raised.

Since A.D. Coleman is a close neighbor, an appoint was made to interview him about the particular state of affairs and to understand why his coverage of the photographi arts was being narrowed down. This interview was put on tape and the word by word conversation will appear for the next couple of newsletters to give you an idea of what’s happening in the higher echelons of the photographic arts. ♦

The Person, the Camera and the Image: Alex Harsley on Photography

On the occasion of Alex Harsley’s exhibition The First Light From Darkness, Pioneer Works joins the artist and his daughter Kendra Krueger at The 4th Street Photo Gallery in the East Village for a glimpse into the inspirations and processes that make up his practice. The exhibition comprises a suite of photographs dating from the 1950s to the present day, and also features a video and sound installation titled The First Light (2000-2020)—an experimental endeavor that alludes to the cosmological origins of time and energy.



Alex Harsley: The First Light From Darkness