remembering brodsky

Inspired by Watermark, a collection of essays on Venice, written by Nobel Prize winning Russian-American poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky

Time stands still in this timeless place; we sense our breath, our temporal existence in the dimness of evening.  

Accademia, Santa Maria della Salute, Rialto: the names of the vaporetto stops ring melodious as we travel this ancient city of water and light.  I see fragments of buildings as we glide through the night.   

The streets lead to the canals, the canals to the streets.  The streets end at the canals, the steps descending into the watery labyrinths.   

We cannot escape the water.

Inanimate by nature, hotel room mirrors
are even further dulled by having seen
so many.  What they return to you is not 
your identity but your anonymity.

                                   Joseph Brodsky, Watermark (1974)

2004, edition of 20
8 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, portfolio of black-and-white images presented in a slipcase
Endnote by Mark Strand
Prints available upon request. Artist’s book edition sold out.

Collections
Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec, Baryshnikov Arts Centre, Columbia University, McGill University, National Library of Canada, Stanford University Photo Collection [artist’s book and complete portfolio of prints], Smith College, University of the South, University of Washington, Wellesley College, Yale University, Natural Furs

Exhibitions
O’Kane Gallery, University of Houston, Texas, 2012 (FotoFest)
Beyond Words: Artists’ Books, University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, 2006
Un Circolo di Poeti, Galleria Grazia Neri, Milan, Italy, 2006 (V Biennale: Orizzonte Québec)
Art Mûr, Montréal, Québec, 2004

Press
Canadian Art, Summer 2005
Night-prowling photographer searches for meaning in Venice, The Montreal Gazette, 4 December 2004