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 4×5 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.
Brian,
I didn’t promise you a Rose garden. Your post is a little whiny. I love your picturesd in the exhibit, they really give bones to the project.
I met a woman at the exhibit today that adored your Monitor memorial and Beecher pictures.
The exhibit is about memory, memorials and how it relates specifically to Brooklyn and the Civil War. Your pictures of the ten Civil War memorials that appear in the far flung corners of Brooklyn support the ephemera, text and vintage photographs and paintings of the show. But the inverse can also be said. They marry well. Let the marriage settle in and take another look, and don’t forget to come upstairs for the continuation of the exhibit.
Art Presson
Exhibition Designer and your friend
p.s. I did not want to neglect the five wonderful images you made in the confines of Green-Wood Cemetery.
Thanks for the comments, Art. I have gotten most of what I wanted to say off my chest, whiny though it may be. And I do plan to go back and take some time with the exhibit as a whole, not just focus on my part of it. We all put a lot into this thing, and I don’t regret getting involved in what is, after all, a collaborative endeavor.
I don’t know Brian Rose or Art Presson. As a photographer myself, I think Mr. Rose made valid points about scale, etc. while not being nasty about it and was generous in giving credit where due.
For Art Presson to chastise Brian on his very own blog by calling his post a little whiny was incredibly rude. It should not have been stated in such a public forum (with friends like that who needs enemies?) and any nice words Mr. Presson added after that just come across as disingenuous.
I don’t know if Mr. Rose was compensated for creating the prints but, if not, prints of that size translate into much expense out of his own pocket. So, it is understandable that he’d want them to have as much impact as possible in such a large, object-cluttered space and not be ignored as “wallpaper”.
By the way, nice work, Mr. Rose.