Over the past 10 years I been documenting real estate projects in and around Manhattan as part of a larger body of streetwork that I’ve produced since moving to the city in the mid-nineties. I was initially drawn to the novelty of observing how, once shrouded in plywood, readily identifiable locals would be transformed into anonymous corners, as if Christo and Avedon co-conspired to emphasize the cities populace. One thing I found loathsome was the encroachment of the supersize vinyl advertisements which announced the impending arrival of the corporate brand that was to displace what may or may not have been a cherished only-in-NY institution. I was
only just recently made aware of my fellow New Yorker and photographer Natan Dvir, when he gained acclaim for his series “Coming Soon”, pictures of ostensibly the same subject matter. I find it interesting to compare our approaches particularly since we were photographing many of the same corners, each unaware of the other’s project. The images from Anatomy of a Corner are from a single intersection on 5th Avenue that I photographed over the course of 6 or 7 weeks during my lunch break. They are comprised of up to 4 or 5 vertical images whichI’ve stitched together in Photoshop, which allows for the grander sense of scale and slightly wider field of view I feel landscape work requires.

Brian Sargent Bio