Union Square

oversize cardboard book, 32" x 24" x 6", 22 pages, 2014

This book contains three distinct, but connected, strands: signs collected from street people, photographs of the personal possessions that are stored on the street and an excerpt from a seminal piece of beat poetry.  Each segment is important for a different reason.  The signs represent a stark contrast to the affluence of downtown, the photographs show a hidden, alternate reality that has all but disappeared from downtown (an alternate reality that used to include artists) and the poem/song, describing and lamenting bohemian aspiration, is a benchmark for alternate culture.

What the book does also describe, I believe, is a sliding scale: just because there is the perception that it was better twenty years ago, does not mean that these current times will not be seen as better twenty years from now.  Human nature and reality are both fickle.  What is unavoidable is that money, commerce and corporate interest are dramatically affecting and infecting everything that made this space unique and there is no going back.  Gone are the “angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection”.