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Photo of the Week #310

James Abbott

View of a street in Rome, lookin across the street at an old Jewish Temple, with the top of a car in the foreground, reflecting trees, with a female cyclist and a red bus passing on the street.

West Facade Corner of Tempio Maggiore, Rome, Italy, 2024
Archival inkjet print
24¼ x  16½ in.

 

Description

August 12, 2024
This photograph by James Abbott shows the western corner of The Great Synagogue of Rome, the largest synagogue in the Italian capital. The synagogue was constructed in 1870, after the unification of Italy, which granted citizenship to the city's Jewish population. Abbott photographs the synagogue from across Via Catalina, the busy thoroughfare that runs through Rome's historic Jewish Ghetto. By interrupting and fragmenting the view, Abbott nods to street photographers like Lee Friedlander, who have embraced devices like reflections as ways to express the multifaceted social histories that are embedded in cityscapes like this one.

This photograph was chosen as a prize winner in the 2024 Photo Review International Photography Competition, juried by Joel Smith, the Richard L. Menschel Curator and Department Head in Photography at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.