The Hook

The Red Hook section of Brooklyn was once a vibrant community and one of the busiest seaports in the world. When benighted urban planners built a six-lane highway through the heart of the neighborhood, Red Hook began a long and painful decline. Lisa Cutler discovered Red Hook by chance, when she made a wrong turn out of a nearby subway station. Taken both with Red Hook's visual chaos and its Victorian beauty, she returned for the next two years to document Red Hook's former vitality and continuing state of flux. Through a formal use of the photographic frame, Cutler's photographs discover beauty away from traditional aesthetics. Cutler's Red Hook series was recognized by the Prix de la Photographie Paris, won the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for cityscapes, and has been shown in galleries around the world.