In the New York Central Yards

Alfred Stieglitz made "In the New York Central Yards" using photography, and what strikes me is the way he coaxes poetry from industry. Look at that plume of smoke. It’s monumental, like a cumulus cloud but dirtier, and somehow alive. What I like about the photograph is its texture: the way the tracks cut across the frame, each line distinct, with the grit and the smudges of the yard, the way the figures are blurred just enough to give a sense of transience. It's full of soft grays and stark blacks that push and pull against each other. It’s like a painting, actually, but more real. There's a whole host of artists working in abstraction who use photographs as source material. Think of Gerhard Richter and his blurred photos, or even Vija Celmins and her depictions of the mundane. I like to think of art as an ongoing conversation, and this photograph is part of that dialogue. It embraces ambiguity and multiple interpretations, leaving the viewer space to find their own meaning.