When Barbara Mensch was invited to organize an exhibition of her photographs in the public gallery of the United States District Court for the Oriental District of New York, curiosity led him to examine the functions of the court. Above all, it was attracted to the extent of its naturalization ceremonies, when, several times a week, about 100 people from around the world enter a courtroom to become American citizens. In response, Mensch was inspired by his 2018 book, In the shadow of geniuswhich combines its own black and white photographs from the Brooklyn bridge and its surroundings with the history of its creators. The 12 photographs presented, as well as a brochure containing extracts from his book, tell the epic story of the bridge designer, John Roebling, who has traveled from a medieval city in Germany to create one of the most precious icons in the world. Mensch was looking for to understand the inexplicable spiritual power of the bridge.
The artist born in Brooklyn photographs the Brooklyn bridge in all seasons, inside and outside, for several decades. In the 1980s, she moved into a maritime warehouse in the Lower Manhattan next to her stone anchor. Resolved to find out more about the creator of the bridge, she went to the birthplace of Roebling in Germany and traced her trip to the United States to better understand what inspired her to consider the bridge. A close plan closer to its diagonal cables, which echo the sails of a ship, welcomes the spectator to imagine his 10 -week journey through the Atlantic Ocean in 1831, while a view of the river bird sculpting through the wild nature dramatizes its 300 mile channel trip to the county of Butler, the county of Butler, Pennsylvania. There, he established a village with other immigrants, several of which helped him make the metal rope which was then used to build the large bridge.
Roebling's relentless conduct resonates with Mensch, which lets its intuitions guide it. His photos reflect the deeply held ideas of the creator of the bridge, as his conviction that each human enterprise is spiritual. An example par excellence in the show is his photo of La Tour de New York du Pont. The pointed arc imitates that the Gothic carts have attended as a child; A ribbon of light that passes creates an atmosphere almost from another world. But after having read the accompaniment text of Mensch, which describes the human costs of updating the vision of Roebling, one cannot help imagining the foundation of the tower, where immigrants of German, Italian and Irish origin worked below the surface of the water, some of which died of decompression disease. Mensch's photo talks about the interconnection of life and death.
The vision of Mensch de New York seems romantic, but she knows that the people who built her are under the constant threat of being swept by changes in the city. The second wall of the exhibition shows three photographs of workers from his project by the water – presented in his books South street (2009) and A Place of fall (2023) – During which it focused on the Fulton fish market, the largest seafood center in North America, while the city investigated its links with organized crime in the 1980s and finally moved it to the Bronx. Besides these portraits are photographs of structures in New York which have been transformed or demolished since it photographed them, including a cinema in Spanish Harlem with a marquee that misses several letters but once said “The party never stops.”
A wall text by urban theorist Jane Jacobs brings the spectacle to the present: “Various and intense cities contain the seed of their own regeneration”. “Where's this seed now?” I asked Mensch. “It is up to the spectator to find it,” she replied. I went to seek a response to the second floor of the courthouse, where a judge was making a naturalization ceremony. Eighty-four new citizens in 31 countries, as well as their families, have filled the large audience room. Behind them was a wall of immigrant workers building a railway, which hung over the doors of Ellis Island. The judge congratulated the people and appointed each country represented in the room, and when she asked the new citizens to stand up, they got up like a wave.
Themes for a courthouse in Brooklyn continues at the Charles P. Sifton gallery at the United States District Court for the Oriental District of New York (225 Cadman Plaza East, Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn) until May 5. The exhibition was organized by judge Robert Mr. Levy.
