Gezicht op de Brug van Segovia te Madrid 1862 - 1876

Curator: Here we have Jean Andrieu's "View of the Segovia Bridge in Madrid," created sometime between 1862 and 1876. It's a gelatin-silver print. What are your initial thoughts? Editor: Stark and austere, almost brutally so. The rigid geometry of the bridge clashes with the makeshift structures clinging to its base. There is an inescapable sense of precarity to this photographic landscape. Curator: Exactly. Note the almost clinical sharpness of the gelatin-silver process. Andrieu’s technique is fascinating—the albumen print process allows for an incredible level of detail, freezing a moment in Madrid’s urban development. This wasn’t just snapping a picture; there was meticulous planning, labour and material expense involved. Editor: And those structures… what is it they reveal? They tell stories of urban inequality, the human necessity that adapts and redefines these civic architectures. It seems less about a bridge, more about who gets to use and live around the monumental infrastructure. Curator: The materiality speaks to the evolution of photographic practices, too. Consider how the rise of photography changed painting, freeing it from the task of direct representation. Look, too, at those clothes hanging—another sort of everyday textile shaped for human use. It gives texture and suggests something of daily routines to a very austere built environment. Editor: That is exactly what gives the work its unsettling power—the intimate placed right next to the impersonal. The domestic labor occurring so blatantly against the hard civic stone is representative of Madrid, but can it also be extended to thinking of societal divisions at large? How power and utility interlock on the backs of daily labor. Curator: Precisely. We often celebrate such civil structures as great accomplishments, marvels of construction but overlook that many who dwell and live near these monumental establishments often have limited access to that luxury. It’s quite remarkable that a "simple" photograph can evoke this tension between human endeavor, public infrastructure and daily struggles of existence. Editor: I will now think differently about those cityscapes going forward! Curator: As will I. Thank you for providing additional and crucial historical lenses.