Rockefeller Center Parking Space, 40 West 49th Street 1938

Berenice Abbott shot this photograph, ‘Rockefeller Center Parking Space, 40 West 49th Street’ with a camera in New York. It’s all about structure, with that high vantage point, looking down at the ordered rows of cars. The print's surface has a lovely range of grays, not too contrasty, and that allows you to really dive into the details. The cars, they’re almost like brushstrokes, each one distinct yet part of this larger composition. And the shadows they cast give the whole thing a kind of geometric abstraction. Look at that one tiny figure walking between the parked cars. It’s a small detail, but it gives the piece scale, makes you think about the human element in this urban landscape. Like a painting, the photograph has a physicality. I’m reminded of the urban landscapes of the painter Charles Sheeler, another artist who found beauty in the everyday, in the shapes and patterns of the modern city. Art isn’t about fixed meanings, it is an ongoing dialogue, where we're constantly riffing on each other's ideas.