New York 2

Aaron Siskind

1951, printed 1970s · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

“When I make a photograph I want it to be an altogether new object, complete and self-contained, whose basic condition is order—(unlike the world of events and actions whose permanent condition is change and disorder).” These words are from Siskind’s “Credo,” written in 1950, but the sentiment can be understood to have guided his work at least since his conversion to primarily abstract photographs in roughly 1943. By 1949, a good portion of Siskind’s photographs recorded accretions on walls: writing, paint, weathered signs, and debris.

Artist

Aaron Siskind

Date

1951, printed 1970s

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1990