New York/Brooklyn Public Library

Enshrined Memories: Brooklyn and the Civil War at the Brooklyn Public Library

The Civil War project I worked on this summer is now up at the Brooklyn Public Library on Grand Army Plaza adjacent to Prospect Park. It's a show I have some mixed feelings about. I knew from the beginning when I was asked to participate that it would not be a "Brian Rose" exhibit, though my photographs would play an important role. That's the way it has turned out, with perhaps, less emphasis on my pictures than I would prefer.


Brooklyn Public Library

The library lobby is a highly problematic space for an exhibition. The building is Speer-like in its grandiosity (pomposity), although the recently renovated entry plaza is beautiful, and makes the building welcoming. One enters, however, under the semi-watchful eyes of uniformed rent-a-cops who will never catch a terrorist or serious criminal, but who might make you think twice about stealing a book.


Brooklyn Public Library

The lobby is a soaring room that shrinks anything put into it. My 4x5 foot photos hung high along the back wall are greatly diminished in the space. I had hoped with the big prints to bring these heroic Civil War figures down from their plinths and high horses for a closer eye-to-eye view. But hanging them up above the catalog computers doesn't allow for that. The city is full of monuments that are paid little attention to. There are exceptions, as I've pointed out before, like the statue of George Washington in Union Square Park, which served as the focal point of the unofficial memorial to those killed in the World Trade Center attacks. The way in which these historic events are remembered and/or partially forgotten is important and is relevant to how we memorialize contemporary wars and tragedies.


Brooklyn Public Library

If you're not looking specifically for my work, but came for Civil War Brooklyn history, there's lots to see in the exhibition, which is curated by Jeff Richman, a historian passionately involved with the subject. The exhibit design was done by Art Presson, and despite my complaints, comes off admirably. It would be nice, however, to see the exhibit in a more humanly scaled interior. If nothing else, come for the stereographs of Civil War battlefield scenes, including frighteningly real dead soldiers. Seen through a stereoscope, you will forget the cacophony of the room around you. As Art says, it's the peep show part of the exhibit.


Exhibit panel with photo of Monitor memorial in Greenpoint


Grant on horseback and the Rodman gun near the Verazzano Narrows Bridge

I am hoping that my photographs will be assembled as a print portfolio, which will allow them to be judged on their own terms. I will put the complete set online shortly. Although it is commissioned work, I worked very hard on the images, and even the most straightforward looking photographs were arrived at by careful inspection of the object and its context. Look back through my earlier posts and see the images as they were made.