<<back next>> Issue of 2005-10-10 Posted 2005-10-03 Photograph / MITCH EPSTEIN “Cocoa Beach 1, Florida, 1983 MITCH EPSTEIN With these twenty-five photos from his book “Recreation: American Photographs 1973-1988,” Epstein trains an amused, affectionate, but hardly uncritical eye on leisure pursuits from Topanga Canyon to Central Park. With the exception of a reveller’s-eye view of a Mardi Gras float, he sticks to the uneventful: a motorboat ride, a yard sale, an exotic dancer’s photo op, two boys sneaking a smoke on a riverbank. The Technicolor crispness of his modestly scaled dye-transfer prints allows Epstein to short-circuit nostalgia and illuminate timeless moments of self-indulgence, camaraderie, obliviousness, and unself-conscious humanity. Through Oct. 22. (Sikkema Jenkins, 530 W. 22nd St. 212-929-2262.)