<span class="subtitle"> [title]</span><br /> <span class="texttitle"> City Fragments<br /> </span> <span class="subtitle"> ghosted retaining walls tell a story<br /> in the codes of a dead language </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 1 terracotta] <br /> solid, earthy, rough or smooth<br /> <span class="larger"> cement lines in between </span><br /> lines of thick icing in a layer cake of mud </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 2 pentimenti]<br /> softly <span class="larger opacityhalf">faded colors </span> fill a peaked triangle <br /> outlining the roof of a long gone house<br /> </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 3 ghosted]<br /> a few fragmentary pieces of type<br /> relics of the sign painter’s art sit like a <span class="larger"> tattoo</span> <br /> on the skin of the rusticated surface. <br /> </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 4 ancient]<br /> <span class="enlarge opacity">brick is an old material</span> <br /> hard and soft at the same time<br /> porous or softly glazed </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 5 block]<br /> sculptural as it crumbles into red earth<br /> <span class="enlarge2x opacityhalf">incremental</span> and modular<br /> not hewn or poured like stone or concrete<br /> </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 6 melt]<br /> <span class="xlineht">associated with stability and strength<br /> except for earthquakes when mortar <span class="larger">liquifies</span><br /> it wobbles, heaves and becomes fluid</span> </span> <span class="textfont xlineht"> [scene 7 embody]<br /> each material has a different relation to the body: <br /> soft or hard, cold or warm, natural or synthetic<br /> space and flesh defined in opposition<br /> not really living, but still present </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 8 blemish]<br /> faded histories are captured <br /> in <span class="enlarge2x">small imperfections</span><br /> remnants of weathered paint, ghostly outlines<br /> </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 9 tracks]<br /> a story written in volumes and voids<br /> the changes in texture and color over time and reparation<br /> create odd <span class="enlarge">rectangles </span> <br /> defined in courses of contrasting color</span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 10 vacant]<br /> <span class="largerserif">streetlights illuminate <br /> an empty room</span> <br /> deep blue shadows at the edges,<br /> broken chairs, clothes, <br > a man‘s soft felt hat<br /> </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 11 isolated]<br /> <span class="larger opacityhalf">stranded </span> in the middle of the floor<br /> perfectly isolated in a pool of light</span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 12 discarded]<br /> these bricks retain <br /> the <span class="largerserif">sense impression </span><br /> of the old factories that once filled this neighborhood<br /> making cigars, hats, leather shoes and binding books<br /> </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 13 deserted]<br /> opposite, a line of bricked up windows <br /> telegraphs isolation and <span class="larger">abandonment </span><br /> flattening out the expected alternation <br /> of solid and void into mute abstraction </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 14 introspective]<br /> this deliberate <span class="largerserif opacityhalf">blankness</span> <br /> conveys the impression of an entire culture<br /> facing outward but really looking inwards</span></span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 15 oversize]<br /> <span class="larger">across the rooftops </span><br /> in the distance, the scale expands,<br /> the units are gigantic, smooth and repetitive. </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 16 unadorn]<br /> they belong to a different order of things<br /> proudly <span class="enlarge">refusing decoration</span> <br /><br /> using massive scale and verticality<br /> to rupture with the past </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 17 patina]<br /> <span class="largerserif">material surface reflects material values</span><br /> even when polished by time and weather </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 18 mirror]<br /> the <span class="largerserif">earthiness of brick</span> <br /> stands in silent reproach of the unyeilding reflective glass <br /> posing a contest of philosophical ideologies </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 19 deformed]<br /> like warp in a <span class="larger">woven cloth</span><br /> within a pattern of brick<br /> the horizontal dominates more than the vertical<br /> </span> <span class="textfont xlineht"> [scene 20 stoneage]<br /> this is a small connection to the Neolithic past<br /> reaching back to 7500 B.C. near the Tigris<br /> originally just humble mud and straw </span> <span class="textfont"> [scene 21 artifact]<br /> <span class="enlarge opacityhalf">hardy relics</span><br /> of the neolithic revolution<br /> the archaic alive in the present </span>