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55x5

"Among the rain / and lights / I saw the figure 5...."  55x5 began one day in 2014 when I saw the figure 5 daubed on a wall in Sicily. I thought of William Carlos Williams’s poem and the painting by Charles Demuth it inspired, of William Christenberry’s photographs of 5-cent signs, and of a bad Freudian joke (What comes between fear and sex? Fünf). The ensuing treasure hunt yielded 5s from Lisbon to Frankfurt, Berkeley to Roanoke. The book 55 x 5 is published by Marquand Editions. Photographs from the book were featured in the March 2018 issue of Poetry magazine. Kathryn Lofton's introduction to the book, and a selection of the photographs, appear also at Design Observer.

Approaching Calcutta

These photographs take a measure of Calcutta (Kolkata) both as a contemporary megacity and a carrier of historical memory, from colonialism to postwar waves of migration. The series alternates between booming peripheral zones and the city’s center, in particular its vast central park, the Maidan. For more on this project, read my essay “Approaching Calcutta” in Places Journal.

Chicago Self-Park

This work addresses the form and evolution of a great city as seen from one its most easily overlooked structures: the self-park garage. These garages mirror what Chicago’s native geometry—the sweep of the prairie, the horizontal thrust of Prairie School architecture, and the proportions of Chicago’s early steel-frame buildings. At the same time, they serve a particular vision of the city's future. The Chicago Self Park series grows out of my urban landscape work in Japan, where I became interested in how automobiles inhabit and transform our city spaces. For a fuller statement on this series see my feature in Places Journal.

Japanese Urban Landscape  

Beyond the entertainment districts, the pachinko parlors and the crowded department stores, Japanese cities are uncannily silent. Walking through their stillness, one begins to discern the peculiar geometries of urban Japan..... Continued here in a March 2010 feature in Places Journal