New York gezien vanaf het R.C.A. Building (tegenwoording GE Building), onderdeel van het Rockefeller Center, Verenigde Staten 1936

Wouter Cool took this photograph of New York from the R.C.A. Building, now the GE Building, using a camera and film. Look at how the buildings fade into the distance. The smokiness isn’t just the actual air quality! It’s the artist’s choice to use soft focus, which gives the image a dreamlike quality, as if the city itself is a figment of our collective imagination. I’m drawn to the repetitive, almost obsessive detail in the photograph, each building a slightly different variation on a theme. It’s like looking at a field of wildflowers, each one unique but part of a larger whole. I can almost feel the weight of the city, the density of humanity packed into those blocks. See that tall building in the middle? It seems to be daring the other skyscrapers to join in reaching the heavens, or maybe it's just trying to catch some more light. I’m reminded of Berenice Abbott’s photographs of New York; both artists capture the city’s dynamism. Ultimately, this photograph is an open question about what it means to live in a city, to build these monuments to ourselves.