Hollywood Freeway #2 1989

Editor: We’re looking at Jim Goldberg's "Hollywood Freeway #2" from 1989, a gelatin-silver print. The contrast between the intimate moment between the two figures and the blurred traffic zooming past creates a really striking juxtaposition. How do you interpret this work in terms of its social commentary? Curator: It’s precisely that contrast which gives the photograph its power. Goldberg, often working within the social documentary tradition, highlights social inequality. Look how the tenderness of that embrace is framed – almost trapped – between the relentless, uncaring flow of traffic and the detritus of discarded items. Consider what the location itself – the freeway – represents in Los Angeles' cultural imagination: mobility, opportunity, but also isolation. Editor: So the freeway, a symbol of freedom, becomes a barrier? Curator: Exactly! Goldberg uses the visual language of documentary photography, which gained prominence with photographers like Dorothea Lange during the Great Depression. It raises questions about who has access to that “freedom” and who is left on the margins, observing it. Where do you think this fits within debates around homelessness, so rife at the time? Editor: It almost feels like an indictment of the promises of progress, that those promises weren't equally distributed. The blur of the cars… they're going somewhere, but these figures are stuck. Curator: The photograph invites us to think about how cities are designed and who benefits from that design, or is excluded by it. Photography has a long history of both celebrating progress and exposing its discontents. It is worth reflecting on what part museums like ours play in perpetuating or subverting social inequality through the art they display. Editor: It definitely provides food for thought. Thanks for opening my eyes to those ideas. Curator: My pleasure. These photographs have the capacity to open discussions of what we take for granted when we understand the role of cultural consumption.