1997

32, 8x10 Gelatin Silver Contact Prints

Coleman A. Young 

Museum of African American History

“We must not let the doomsayers and naysayers cause us to lose faith in our city, in ourselves, and in each other. Much of the negative propaganda with which we are bombarded is calculated to disarm us. Without love and without hope there can be no future for anyone.”

-Coleman A. Young

Public Viewing is more like a public passing— the passing of people by the former mayor, the passage out, back to the open air—back to life. The doors are a metaphor for death itself, opening just enough, then too much. The circle of life, the ushering out of life, the reductive power of it all, to a small color photo on one side and a bio on the other. A remembrance of a day perhaps more than the man. A day when thousands stood in the freezing rain for one last glimpse. A chance for families to stay connected through their shared grief or celebration. Entering one space after leaving another, the doors anchor the commotion and direct the flow at a randomly dispersed rate; sometimes trickling, mostly pouring, constantly coming through an others life into their own. 

-Marco Lorenzetti