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john glassie :: images | statement | bio | press release 

statement :: Bicycles Locked to Poles

Bicycles Locked to Poles began in early 2001, when a magenta arrow–spray-painted on the sidewalk by a representative of the electrical utility–pointed directly to the sadly bent, Dali-esque wheel of a bicycle on Glassie's street. He passed by every day for months, until one day it was gone. It occurred to him to begin taking pictures of other bicycles locked to poles in and around his East Village neighborhood. The photos were shot with an 35mm Nikon, and in many cases by waiting days for Alternate-Side-of-the-Street parking regulations to take effect.

Glassie prostrates himself before John James Audubon, Bernd and Hilla Becher, The Peterson Field Guides, and someone unknown to him until fairly recently: Arnold Odermatt. A Swiss police officer, Odermatt photographed automobile accidents on the streets of the Swiss canton of Nidwalden for forty years, between 1939 and 1993.

>> download a .pdf of the press release for the book (from McSweeney's)