My colleague Miles Coolidge is a photographer. Miles creates visual inventories of familiar yet unnoticed spaces (the insides of elevators, for example, which sample “institutionality.” Plus assorted chewing gum.)
Miles’ series on garages features three shots per subject, one of each interior wall. There is no view from the street or into the driveway. It’s just garage.
Miles chose garages because “they’re not as heavily coded as living rooms.” The garage catches the overflow of the house: brooms and buckets rather than sofas and side chairs. For many of Miles’ subjects, the garage is also a workshop, where production trumps consumption.
The camera, Miles says, tacitly organizes the space, yet the compositional force really belongs to the owner of the garage. In other words, these photos house two drivers, the photographer and the homeowner.
Upon seeing his garage documented, one owner exclaimed, “So that’s where my wrench went.” Next time I can’t find something, I’m going to try taking pictures.
Photos: Miles Coolidge, From the Home of Mr. and Mrs. E. O. Cronkite. Courtesy of Casey Kaplan, NY, and ACME, Los Angeles.
— Julia Lupton · 2009-06-10
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