statement by the artist


Open Space (1970)

What is most important to me now in photography is the state of mind when
I am photographing, or where I try to put it. Often it is very difficult to get it
there because of distracting circumstances that make you feel uncornfortable,
such as heat or cold or material worries such as unpaid bills which make you
hostile or angry. But on the rare day when one can achieve a certain amount
of isolation from the external world and its demands, I venture forth with a
peaceful expectation of some surprizing adventure. For instance, I will almost
arbitrarily select an area of New York out of an enormous street atlas that I
have of all the boroughs. I have learned from walking the streets of many cities
(Timbuctu, Amsterdam, Kyoto, Katmandu, Charleston, Paris) and studying their
maps, that they all follow a certain archetypical image which displays itself in
the formations of the intricate labyrinths and patterns of city streets and quar-
ters. I open rny atlas and look at the configurations of routes and intersections
and try to sense what area might be visually productive. Perhaps a housing
development built around the circular course of an abandoned racetrack on
Staten Island or indications of street that end in enormous stairways in the hilly
Bronx. Perhaps for a few days I will follow the edge of a river or bay or pick up
upon the paths of the Elevated subways that run like streams through canyons
of housing. When I arrive at my destination I try to fill my eyes with a kind of
adolescent wonder: wow, out of sight, too much, fantastic. The subway inter-
section at East Tremount Avenue and the Grand Concourse becomes trans-
formed for me into a marvellous enchanted valley, its secretive caves, its
corner candy stores into fountains of youth, its patches of fenced grass into
magical gardens (...) lt becomes like a dream, a chance pot-pourri of simulta-
neous occurrences given form by the unconscious imagination ...): a waking
hallucination (...).



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