Car Wash, Roosevelt Field 1979

Curator: Elaine Mayes's "Car Wash, Roosevelt Field" captures an everyday scene with a stark, almost melancholic beauty. Editor: The heavy curtains of the car wash evoke a ritualistic cleansing, almost like a baptism for the automobile. Curator: Indeed, Mayes, working in 1979, seems fascinated by these commonplace industrial spaces and the labor they entail. The photographic print itself shows a specific relationship to the social context in which it was produced, and to the labor that goes into producing a clean car. Editor: The car emerges as a modern icon, simultaneously mundane and revered. Curator: The materials here, the steel of the car wash, the water, even the soap, are transformed through Mayes's lens into something almost monumental. Editor: I see echoes of classical purification rites. The vehicle isn't just cleaned; it's symbolically reborn. Curator: A powerful convergence of the everyday and the symbolic. Editor: It makes one reconsider what is truly sacred in our culture.