Matthew Buckingham
Canal Street Canal, No. 2

Image Not Available for Canal Street Canal, No. 2

© Matthew Buckingham

Canal Street Canal, No. 2
Image Not Available for Canal Street Canal, No. 2
ArtistAmerican, born 1963
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Canal Street Canal, No. 2
Date2002
Place depictedNew York, New York, United States
MediumChromogenic print collage
DimensionsImage: 3 15/16 × 6 in. (10 × 15.2 cm)
 Sheet: 3 15/16 × 6 in. (10 × 15.2 cm)
 Mount: 13 3/16 × 11 1/8 in. (33.5 × 28.3 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Judy Nyquist, Carey C. Shuart, and Cynthia Toles
Object number2012.449
Not on view

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Department
Photography
Object Type
DescriptionUtilizing photography, film, video, audio, writing, and drawing, Matthew Buckingham’s work questions the role that social memory plays in contemporary life. Canal Street, Canal No. 2 is a photo-collage that the artist created in relation to a mass-produced postcard that was originally shown in a site-specific exhibition on Canal Street, in New York City. (The postcard was sold by vendors on Canal Street alongside ordinary postcards usually sold to tourists.) Canal Street takes its name from a small drainage ditch that replaced a natural stream in lower Manhattan in the late 18th century. Prior to that transformation, a proposal was made to convert the stream into a shipping canal and the area into a commercial harbor. The postcard, instead of providing New York City visitors with a souvenir view of Canal Street as it is, helps viewers imagine an alternative past, implicitly asking if it is possible to be nostalgic for something that never was.
ProvenanceArtist, New York City, 2002; Murray Guy Gallery, New York City, 2002; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, 2012
Exhibition History"Utopia/ Dystopia: Construction and Destruction in Photography and Collage," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 11 March - 10 June, 2012.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed in pencil verso lower left: CANAL STREET CANAL NO. 2, MB 2002
Initialed recto LL in pencil: MB 2002

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