Bruce Berman's American photographs

America Wants to Know had an opportunity to visit the Getty museum yesterday and see the new exhibition, "Where We Live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection."

If you're in the Los Angeles area, it's worth a trip.

It seemed to me that every photograph had the powerful draw of the opening scene in a motion picture you know instantly you are going to watch to the end, because the story has gripped you from the first frame of film.

For admirers of mid-century cultural icons (if you've read The 37th Amendment, you know I'm one of them), the photographs from the collection of film executive Bruce Berman capture muscle cars and movie theaters and filling stations and roadside restaurants and much more.

My favorite image in the collection is a photograph by Jim Dow titled "University Club Library Detail, Display of Books, New York, New York." It shows a wall of books in the background and a shelf of books in the foreground, all tagged with library labels and ready to lend, under a soaring, elaborately decorated ceiling.

By coincidence, the Getty is currently displaying "Icons from Sinai," an exhibition of religious icons from the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine in Egypt. Through the photographer's eye, the University Club Library bears a striking resemblance to St. Catherine's basilica. The library displays books for the devotion to knowledge exactly the way the church displays icons for the worship of dead saints.

"I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me library or give me death!"

"Where We Live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection" continues at the Getty through February 25, 2007.


Copyright 2006


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