Marco Peri

MARCO PERI
“Guggenheim New York,” 2001.
Black-and-white photograph.
Signed in the lower left margin. Titled and dated in the lower right margin.
Measurements: 27 x 37.4 cm (image); 41 x 52 cm (frame).

Dated 2001, the work transforms one of New York’s great icons of modern architecture into a composition with a distinctly graphic quality. Marco Peri makes use of the curved and horizontal forms of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, contrasting the luminosity of the façade with the dark strip of vehicles and figures occupying the foreground. The architecture, rather than merely serving as a document of the city, organizes the entire visual structure of the photograph. The museum itself highlights the radical nature of Wright’s building in contrast to Manhattan’s urban grid.

The black-and-white treatment reinforces the geometry of the whole and the alternation between light and dark masses. The frontal framing compresses the different planes and establishes an effective contrast between the monumentality of the museum and the everyday traffic on Fifth Avenue, introducing urban life as a counterpoint to the formal purity of the architecture.