Multiple Exposure Torn Sign after 1955

Curator: Here we have Harry Callahan’s photographic work, "Multiple Exposure Torn Sign," part of the Harvard Art Museums collection. Editor: It’s like a melancholic urban collage, a textured map of forgotten announcements. A visual representation of time passing, maybe? Curator: Precisely. Callahan's technique collapses layers of urban communication – advertisements, notices, perhaps even political statements – into a single frame. The material itself, the torn paper, speaks to the constant cycle of production and consumption. Editor: I get the sense that Callahan wants us to reconsider the beauty in decay. It is like a poem made out of discarded fragments and that makes me feel like the city wants to whisper something in my ear. Curator: Absolutely. Callahan reframes the mundane, highlighting the often overlooked textures and histories embedded in the urban landscape. Editor: Yes, and looking at it now, maybe that poem the city wants to tell me is about itself. Curator: A lovely thought, an epitaph for a city’s layered narratives, don’t you think? Editor: Indeed.