Jeff Mermelstein
‘What if Jeff were a Butterfly?’
by Jeff Mermelstein, published by Void.
Jeff Mermelstein has spent decades photographing life on the streets of New York. In this book, he turns the camera inward, beginning with flowers: perhaps the most photographed subject in history, and possibly the most avoided (for that very reason). From there, the work unfolds through pages of journals, family snapshots, phone notes, and previously unseen prints, drawn from an intimate investigation of Jeff’s archive and personal memorabilia. Together, they form a quiet portrait of attention, finding beauty in the everyday and meaning in the small things that make up a life.
What if Jeff were a Butterfly?
This book was born from over two hundred images of flowers—an unexpected output for Jeff Mermelstein has been making photographs on the streets of New York for decades. Mermelstein brought the photographs to Void with the idea of making them into a book. During discussions, Mermelstein’s compulsion to photograph flowers was likened to the predilections of a butterfly. The book’s title and content evolved both from this idea and the recognition of the similarity between the behaviour of winged insects and those who photograph on the street. Both moving quickly and erratically from one attractive thing to the next, albeit from street corner to street corner or from flower to flower. The quickness of observing, landing, and leaving.
“I've dug into my archive boxes to make a collage, a timeline that's not a line. Here's more of my story, including pictures and dangling words to help convey an urgent sense of searching for surprise. Family roots permeate and brighten the weave. New flower pictures hold the balance with beauty. My wish is that this book is not finished.”
Jeff Mermelstein
Over the course of a year, Mermelstein mined his personal archives. He searched for lost materials and unearthed old, unpublished photographs to visually represent this butterfly-like behaviour. He found small, quiet, previously overlooked moments in images which could collectively accumulate meaning. He gathered images of flowers photographed on the hoof, pages from old journals, ancient snapshots of family, iPhone photos of thoughts, memories and passing ideas—all rough, spontaneous and preserved without editing. The creation of the book became a playful collaboration, constructing a metaphorical shoebox of re-found discoveries to form Mermelstein’s first introspective body of work, a portal to his inner-life.
Mermelstein’s photographs are known for being fast, funny and sharp—a reputation built from nearly 50 years of photographing on the street. He notices things that most people overlook and captures these fleeting moments. The works in the book are sequenced and paired with no discernible hierarchy nor narrative to echo Mermelstein’s sharp humour with both similarities and juxtapositions of colour, form and composition.
The Collector’s Edition
Limited edition of 10
The ‘What if Jeff were a Butterfly’ Collector’s Edition is limited to just 10 copies, each accompanied by a silver gelatin hand print, signed on the verso by Jeff Mermelstein. Printed on Ilford Multigrade Fibre-Based Warmtone Glossy Paper, the darkroom print measures 25,4 × 20,3 cm (10 × 8 in) and comes in an edition of 10, plus 2 artist’s proofs (APs). Each print is presented in a custom-made wooden box and comes with a Riso-printed certificate of authenticity. The edition also includes a copy of the book with a specially designed Riso-printed Obi.
16,8 x 23 cm
222 pages
1000 copies
Hardcover with Silkscreen
ISBN 978-618-5479-44-2
What if Jeff were a Butterfly?
Collector’s Edition
Limited edition of 10 copies
With a darkroom print signed and numbered on verso by Jeff Mermelstein
Print dimension: 25,4 x 20,3 cm (10 x 8 in)
Edition of 10 + 2APs
Silver gelatin hand prints
on Ilford Multigrade Fiber-Based Warmtone Glossy Paper
+ Certificate of Authenticity
+ Custom-made wooden box
Jeff Mermelstein
Jeff Mermelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, was born in 1957 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He graduated from Rutgers College in 1978 with a B.A. in Biology and moved to New York City the same year for a one-year internship at the International Center of Photography, where he has been on the teaching faculty since 1987. Mermelstein was awarded an Aaron Siskind Foundation Grant (1991) and the European Publishers Award for Photography (1999). His photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Art Institute of Chicago; and the International Center of Photography, New York. His editorial work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Fortune, Life, The New Yorker, New York, Esquire, GQ, Newsweek, Time, Vanity Fair, and many others.
Mermelstein’s monographs include ‘Sidewalk’ (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 1999), ‘No Title Here’ (powerHouse Books, 2003), ‘Twirl / Run’ (powerHouse Books, 2009), ‘Arena’ (TBW Books, 2019), ‘Hardened’ (Mörel Books, 2019), and ‘#nyc’ (MACK, 2020).
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The Brooklyn Rail – The Best Art Books of 2025 – Zach Ritter
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GREECE, Void
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Photograph: Jeff Mermelstein
Edit, Design: João Linneu, Myrto Steirou
Illustration: Martin, Stanley
Printing: Jelgavas tipogrāfija
Binding: Jelgavas tipogrāfija
Language: English
Font: Sinar Reversed Semibold by Lokal Container
Jeff Mermelstein © for the photographs and illustrations
Void © for this edition