PHOTOGRAPHS
Callahan, Harry
U.S. (1912 - 1999)
New York, 1974
1974
Gelatin silver print on Agfa paper
9 1/4 x 9 1/4 in. (23.5 x 23.5 cm) image size; 12 x 11 in. (30.5 x 27.8 cm) sheet size
Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company
FA 97.61

On August 7, 1974, following similar performances at Paris’s Notre Dame and the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia, Frenchman Philippe Petit walked on a wire suspended between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Petit had dreamed of performing at the top of the world’s tallest buildings even before construction of the World Trade Center had begun and dedicated years of his life to his unauthorized pursuit. Attending police officer Charles Daniels, interviewed shortly after the event, observed of Petit’s breathtaking accomplishment, “I personally figured that I was watching something that somebody else would never see again in the world — that it was once in a lifetime.” Petit’s performance brought attention and affection to the World Trade Center, and the “Twin Towers” became emblematic of New York City.

Harry Callahan’s photograph of buildings on the Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, taken the same year as Petit’s high-wire walk, encourages many readings. For me, it captures the spirit of Petit’s performance by similarly romanticizing the modern skyscraper, alternatively characterized by technology historian Lewis Mumford in 1970 as “…purposeless giantism and technological exhibitionism…now eviscerating the living tissue of every good city.” Callahan’s print entrances us, guiding our eyes along the buildings’ ribbed facades and ever upwards. Without the ground or sky to orient our view, we float weightlessly, suspended fantastically, not unlike Petit, amidst the gravity-defying high-rises. -- Label copy for Vortexhibition Polyphonica: Opus I, October 3, 2009 to February 9, 2010.