Signs: wordplay in photography.

• Author: Ganz, James
• Position: Focus

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THE MODERN metropolis can be a site of sensory overload. A major contributor to the visual noise is the ubiquity of signs of every conceivable shape, size, and design, all competing with each other for attention. Signs may shout or whisper in their efforts to sell, inform, or warn. They cover our buildings, our vehicles, and even our bodies. Adding to the cacophony are messages that have long outlived their purpose and the "tags" of graffiti artists. These surreptitious marks left by Western tourists appeared in the first photographs of Egyptian ruins dating from the mid 19th century.

Signs have become nearly unavoidable features of the contemporary landscape. As such, they have found their way into the viewfinders of countless photographers. Placed within the photographic frame, the sign cannot help but command our attention, for that is precisely what it is designed to do.

Berenice Abbott's "Flam and Flam, 165 East 121st Street, Manhattan" (1938) is an essentially documentary image in which a mosaic of window signs advertises the services of a diverse group of lawyers, bail bondsmen, process servers, and notaries, including the amusingly named firm Flam and Flam occupying the ground floor. There is little doubt that Abbott was attracted to this address not by its undistinguished architecture, but by the information conveyed in the signs which speak to aspects of life in East Harlem during the 1930s.

Similarly, in his ongoing project to document African-American cultural landscapes photographically, Lewis Watts focused his lens on a site plastered with insistent slogans fueled by religious fervor. More than a house, pickup truck, sidewalk, or sign. Watts' "West Oakland" (1993) is a picture of words.

Many photographers have celebrated the graphic qualities of commercial logos and advertising, what communications theorist Marshall McLuhan characterized as "the greatest art form of the 20th century." Polish...