Madrid, Spain (Woman With Red Hair And Blue Dress Outside of Carrefour)

This is the print that came home with me at the end of I 95.  This is the print that the Lookers, which I have been posting the last 3 days, were regarding.  When offered the option of taking a piece, just one, from an exhibit it is easy to start to be a little crazy.  With more than 200 prints available (minus the one Ruben had staked out early) I ran through the list of considerations.  Iconic?  The boy doing a flip on the mattress, the red steps which became the cover of America, If You Reading This...?  One that references historic photographs?  The green ceiling of angles which nods to Eggleston as well as Weston but is so beguiling in its own right?  It is easy to become childish in the sense of "I Don't Want to Choose!!"  "I Want Them All!!"


I loved this image from the first time Zoe posted it while in Spain.  It is a portrait which embodies all of the humanity of the subject as well as the artist.  The gaze is direct, the posture bold but there is no confrontation in this woman.  She is.  The backdrop includes the faded/wiped out/disconnected text which runs through so many of the I 95 images.  Text as information, text as symbol, text as landscape.  Formally, the balancing of the red and green bags with her dress and fabulous hair creates movement which belies the dead center composition.  This is one of the most recent images included in the final I 95, a photograph made in the 10th year of the project.  Made in Spain it is an indicator that the project took Zoe from the freeway which runs through her neighborhood (and has served as the metaphor and gallery for this work) to the bigger world, yet has found/stayed within that which unites us all.  I don't know this woman, and probably never will, but I love everything this photograph tells me about her.  She makes me smile.  What better gift could she and Zoe give me?


Technical notes:  The tissue surrounding the print is acid free tissue brought along to place the print on.  All of the prints are laminated and given a full adhesive backing to mount them to the pillars.  When 4:00 comes and they are all peeled down it is best to have something to stick them to.  If you look closely there is a chip of paint from the pillar stuck to the bottom right edge of the print itself.  I have no idea what it will do to the life of the print but love that it adds a bit of terroir.   The 4 round objects are 2 pound weights (think bean bags with beautiful leather covers) that are holding the print flat since I had to roll it and place it in a tube to safely transport it on the plane.

Looking at I 95 (3)

Here is the third installment of Looking at I 95 2010.  Tomorrow I will post the print that is being regarded.

Looking at I 95 (2)

Here are 6 more images from I 95 2010 as a continuation of yesterday's post.

Again, click on image for larger view.... 

Looking at I 95

I returned from Philadelphia yesterday.  The final Zoe Strauss exhibit/installation/happening of I 95 was absolutely brilliant.  The final hour (from 3:00 to 4:00) I took up residency beside the print which I had chosen to bring home.  I decided to make pictures of people as they stood to look at "my" print.  Trying to photograph the show as a whole is a useless exercise.  The scale, the crowds, the light do not lend themselves to the long view.  It occurred to me that making pictures of people looking might be the best way to describe the event.  Zoe's ability to engage people in looking, and through looking to transcend the "facts" of the image and arrive at meaning, places her among the gods.  Today I am posting the first 6 of 18 Lookers.

I will post the rest as the week goes on.  At the end of the week I will post a picture of the print that came down, complete with paint chips which testify to its inclusion in the final iteration of I 95.  I am grateful for and humbled by the opportunity to experience I 95. 


As always click on each image for a larger view.