New York 1987

This black and white photograph is by Rosalind Solomon, called New York, and it's, well, of New York. There's a kind of quiet intimacy here, a closeness. The textures feel really important: the hairy legs, the rough leaves, the grainy earth, and the yielding, rounded pumpkin. Look at the contrast between the light and shadow – it gives the image a kind of weighty drama. You can almost feel the weight of the pumpkin in the hand, the coolness of the earth, and the scratchiness of the foliage. In a funny way, this image puts me in mind of some of the earth work photography of Robert Smithson. Although the contrast between the two, in terms of subject matter and approach, could hardly be greater, there is a similar feeling of entropy, of the return to the earth. Both seem to find meaning in the physical processes of the world. I feel like the picture captures a particular moment but also gestures toward a longer duration, an almost geologic timescale.