As a child, Ariel Meyerowitz would follow her famous father around with a little Olympus XA camera and mimic his work as a photographer. Once home, he’d edit the images on a slide projector, inviting his daughter to sit alongside him. “He loved having a little shadow,” Meyerowitz recalls. “Watching him click through the slides, I learned not just to look at the world but to really see it, to notice the relationship between people and place, the colour of everything, and the humour or poignancy of it all.”
To the wider world, that “perpetually creative, present and loving” father is Joel Meyerowitz, the renowned American photographer. He is also the man in this photo, photographing his daughter who is in turn photographing both him and a sculpture on display at Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone’s show The Rainbow Body.
“His schedule is always jam-packed when he visits New York from his home in London, but he sets aside at least a day to go to galleries or museums with me,” Meyerowitz, who is an art adviser, says. “He’s a captivating and eloquent speaker with a deep knowledge of both photography and art history. We always have a great exchange of commentary and opinions. Often we agree, but there are definitely times when we don’t.”
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In the case of Rondinone’s show, the pair both loved the immersive, vibrant experience. “When photographing art, I always strive to maintain the integrity of the work and not represent it any differently than the artist intended,” Meyerowitz says. “The iPhone rendered Rondinone’s colour beautifully.”
