Motorcycle 1989

Curator: Standing before us is Jim Goldberg’s 1989 gelatin silver print, "Motorcycle." Part of an assemblage perhaps. It really speaks to our modern ruin. Editor: Oh, wow. Yeah, there's a stillness here that's almost haunting. This isn’t a machine in motion; it's this carcass picked over by time and... circumstance? Makes you wonder about its past life, doesn’t it? Curator: It does. Goldberg has a knack for finding these poignant stories in the forgotten corners of urban life. Looking at this composition, it is starkly contrasted with that graffiti-covered wall that tells another parallel story. It elevates the photograph beyond mere documentation. It invites discourse around themes like social decay and urban transformation. Editor: The graffiti looks less destructive, though; more like claims of territory or attempts at beauty. It’s funny that we have the remnants of two aspirations collapsing here, the practical one of the bike to carry someone quickly through life, and the graffiti which makes a much louder statement about freedom, place and expression. Is this tension something Goldberg explores more widely? Curator: Absolutely. His work frequently explores social issues by questioning how the power of documentation shapes public awareness, but I also find myself really captivated by the raw emotional honesty of his work. It's visceral, right? Editor: Totally. Visceral's the perfect word. It's like feeling the grit and grime without actually being there. And the monochrome really amplifies the melancholy; it strips everything down to the bare bones. This isn't about nostalgia, it's more like... a memento mori for the industrial age? A warning perhaps? Curator: A warning? Or perhaps a poignant reminder that even in decay, there's a peculiar kind of beauty and maybe a silent strength, just as much in entropy as anything we see around us, alive, new. Editor: You always find the silver lining, don’t you? Well, either way, this photograph is a stark, striking and sad testament to the ephemerality of our manufactured world, our shared social existence, the passing of all things. Curator: And in that impermanence, there lies the beauty of acceptance. Profound really. Thanks for exploring this little corner of human existence with me. Editor: Likewise. There is more here than meets the eye, or what is left of one!