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8 Million Stories
8 Million Stories
May 8, 2023
After the Rehearsal, Subway NY 1982
© Willy Spiller, Courtesy of Bildhalle
Through to May 20, 2023, Bildhalle Zurich presents the exhibition ‘Hell on Wheels’ with works by Swiss-born photographer WillySpiller. The showcase (and the simultaneously published, newly edited monograph) not only features iconic images from the legendary series, but also includes scenes that have never been published before.
Bill Shapiro, former editor-in-chief of LIFE Magazine, wrote in the book’s introduction: “In May of 1977, [Willy Spiller] descended the steps of the city’s subway for the first time. What he saw was terrifying. And electrifying. And, truth be told, addicting. Beginning that week and continuing for eight years, Willy Spiller brought his camera on the subway, and he shot. He shot cops and robbers. He shot the fashionable and the indigent, commuters and kids. He shot the unpredictable dance of strangers interacting in tin-can train cars. He shot the beginnings of stories whose ends he left to our imaginations.
It didn’t take him long to understand that there is nothing more New York than its subways, each car a sweaty, rattling microcosm of the city itself—a loud, crowded, colorful melting pot. At some 60 feet long by 10 feet wide, and packed with well over 150 impatient passengers at rush hour, a subway car held the threads of the city’s 8 million stories: the clash of high and low culture, the swirl of accents and dialects, of cussing and laughter.”
Since 1968, Spiller (b. 1947) has worked as a photojournalist and freelance photographer for leading newspapers, magazines, agencies and international corporations, and spent years travelling the world together with friends from the fields of literature and art. His foreign and domestic reportages – distinguished by a strong focus on social and aesthetic transitions, and a willingness to break with stylistic norms – have been recognised with multiple awards. Through his search for a subjective truth, Stiller has significantly contributed to the autonomous status of documentary photography within the contemporary art discourse.
Bill Shapiro, former editor-in-chief of LIFE Magazine, wrote in the book’s introduction: “In May of 1977, [Willy Spiller] descended the steps of the city’s subway for the first time. What he saw was terrifying. And electrifying. And, truth be told, addicting. Beginning that week and continuing for eight years, Willy Spiller brought his camera on the subway, and he shot. He shot cops and robbers. He shot the fashionable and the indigent, commuters and kids. He shot the unpredictable dance of strangers interacting in tin-can train cars. He shot the beginnings of stories whose ends he left to our imaginations.
It didn’t take him long to understand that there is nothing more New York than its subways, each car a sweaty, rattling microcosm of the city itself—a loud, crowded, colorful melting pot. At some 60 feet long by 10 feet wide, and packed with well over 150 impatient passengers at rush hour, a subway car held the threads of the city’s 8 million stories: the clash of high and low culture, the swirl of accents and dialects, of cussing and laughter.”
Since 1968, Spiller (b. 1947) has worked as a photojournalist and freelance photographer for leading newspapers, magazines, agencies and international corporations, and spent years travelling the world together with friends from the fields of literature and art. His foreign and domestic reportages – distinguished by a strong focus on social and aesthetic transitions, and a willingness to break with stylistic norms – have been recognised with multiple awards. Through his search for a subjective truth, Stiller has significantly contributed to the autonomous status of documentary photography within the contemporary art discourse.
After the Rehearsal, Subway NY 1982
© Willy Spiller, Courtesy of Bildhalle
Conversation on the A-Train, Subway NY 1983
© Willy Spiller, Courtesy of Bildhalle
Elevated Station 180 St, Queens, Subway NY 1982
© Willy Spiller, Courtesy of Bildhalle
Rush Hour on Lexington IRT, Subway NY 1981
© Willy Spiller, Courtesy of Bildhalle
Schoolgirls On the A-Train to Far Rockaway, Subway NY 1978
© Willy Spiller, Courtesy of Bildhalle