1985
Gelatin silver print
14 13/16 x 18 3/4in
Mead Art Museum, Amherst College
AC 1995.66.16
Gift of Stanley and Diane Person

Marilyn Bridges began her career photographing ancient Nazca Lines in Peru while riding a small airplane. By going up in the air, she took on the perspective of the gods, a view that historians believe is the reason such sites were designed. In using a bird’s-eye perspective in documenting the industrialized world of the late twentieth century, the meaning of such a viewpoint becomes more complex. On one hand, she is offering us a fresh view of our everyday world. This location of traffic—the process of going from organized route, to the chaos of shifting lanes, only to be safely filtered safely back by the tollbooth—becomes aestheticized by Bridges. The mundane toll booth becomes the central compositional element in which the glittering sequin-like light and dark colored vehicles merge together. The alternating streaks of soot covered asphalt become akin to the expressive lines of a charcoal drawing, adding complex texture to an otherwise flat expanse of pavement. Her image captures a sublimity not unlike that of the ancient Peruvian geoglyphs. How large or powerful must a society be in order to make such a large mark on landscape? This small sliver of roadway suggests the greater web of roads, vehicles, and smog stretching across the continent. The sheer expanse of pavement, the lack of natural vegetation, and the nearly uncountable lanes of cars becomes a symbol of humanity’s dominance over the landscape. For what gods do we create these massive structures? Like the work of Edward Burtynsky, this work combines an aesthetic experience with questions of environmentalism, industrialization, and humanity’s potency.

-Elizabeth Gouin


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