{"id":7185,"date":"2018-10-03T09:35:16","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T09:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vetalight.it\/dev\/?p=7185\/"},"modified":"2020-05-05T14:41:35","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T14:41:35","slug":"greg-miller-unto-dust-design-by-ramon-pez-lartiere-publishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lartiere.com\/fr\/greg-miller-unto-dust-design-by-ramon-pez-lartiere-publishing\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg Miller \u00ab\u00a0Unto Dust\u00a0\u00bb design by Ramon Pez; L’Artiere Publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On a cool February day, 20 years ago, Greg Miller asked a New Yorker why they were wearing ashes on their forehead. Fascinated by the juxtaposition of the ancient ritual against the backdrop of contemporary New York City, Miller began documenting Ash Wednesday every year using his large format 8-by-10 inch view camera. Unto Dust showcases over 40 of Miller’s portraits of workers, business people, tourists and other New Yorkers on the first day of Lent made over the course of two decades.<\/p>\n

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\u00ab\u00a0In 1997, I began most days by walking down the steps of my apartment building<\/em>
\nonto East 32nd Street with a wooden 8\u201d by 10\u201d camera over my shoulder.<\/em>
\nFollowing intuition and the light, I\u2019d walk around different neighborhoods of<\/em>
\nthe city and make pictures. On this particular February day, I was standing on<\/em>
\nbustling Third Avenue near Grand Central Station when something I saw in<\/em>
\nthat sharply angled winter sunlight made me pause. People were going about<\/em>
\ntheir day\u2013to work, to lunch, talking, laughing, smoking, and hailing taxis\u2013all<\/em>
\nwith ashen crosses on their foreheads. The visual juxtaposition was suddenly<\/em>
\nso compelling. A few more people walked by, and then I saw a man I would<\/em>
\nhave stopped to photograph on any day; his receding white hair and bushy<\/em>
\nmustache were like my father\u2019s. Yet the ashes on his forehead were evocative<\/em>
\nof something more ancient and mysterious. The photograph I made of him<\/em>
\nbecame the first in what would become a twenty-year-long exploration of Ash<\/em>
\nWednesday through portraiture.<\/em>
\nAsh Wednesday is the first day of Lent in the Christian liturgical calendar. A<\/em>
\npriest administers ashes to a person\u2019s forehead while uttering some version of the<\/em>
\nmemento mori, \u201cRemember you are dust and to dust you shall return.\u201d This ritual<\/em>
\nobservance acts as a reminder of the believer\u2019s own mortality and imperfect<\/em>
\nnature at the beginning of the introspective and repentant period of Lent.<\/em>
\nMy own artistic ritual, returning to New York City year after year to<\/em>
\nphotograph Ash Wednesday, has made this series personally sacred. Because<\/em>
\nthe day arrives in late winter, it coincides with my own emerging from a kind<\/em>
\nof photographic hibernation, resuming the somewhat scary, yet rewarding<\/em>
\npractice of photographing strangers on the street. Ash Wednesday allows<\/em>
\nme to reflect on the past year. This echoes what many of the people in my<\/em>
\npictures report feeling: their day begins in apprehension and trepidation,<\/em>
\nbut as the hours pass it transforms into an experience of redemption<\/em>
\nand forgiveness.<\/em>
\nAs an observer, I\u2019m cautious about assuming what the mark of the ashes<\/em>
\nmeans for the faith of those who receive it. I used to think that all my<\/em>
\nsubjects must be devout in some kind of singular or definable way. Yet<\/em>
\nthrough the years, in talking with over 300 subjects, I\u2019ve learned that the<\/em>
\nphysical practice of the ritual is the unifying feature for people whose faith<\/em>
\nis a varied, complex, living phenomenon.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n

Greg Miller<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a cool February day, 20 years ago, Greg Miller asked a New Yorker why they were wearing ashes on their forehead. Fascinated by the juxtaposition of the ancient ritual…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[562,445,621,567],"class_list":["post-7185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-post-blog-fr","tag-greg-miller","tag-lartiere","tag-ramon-pez","tag-unto-dust"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t