The Bicycle Diaries

Check out this interactive feature from The New York Times featuring The Bicycle Diaries. The line work on these images is rather impressive, and it captures a vivid point of our nation’s history. While the event had such weight it makes these scenes of dometic affairs resonate so strongly. When the news picked up the story we saw planes flying into buildings, smoke and debrisis. The New York depicted here is not languishing in grief or despair, but pedaling doggedly back into normalacy.

While my knowledge of the process is limited it seems to me that the prints have a similar sense of cutural relevance as does Elizabeth Catlett’s “The Sharecropper” (1957). Featured in both bodies of work feature the working man, not the important figures of the day. However, the grain of the cuts vary between the two styles. The “Bicycle” series are nice and smooth. They are cultivated to create a seamless plane. The images pop off the page like a drawing instead of a carved surface, but despite that still retains a wonderful sense of texture. It contrasts Catlett’s piece in this regard, because her print features each stroke giving one mark character from the next.

Together the illustrations, text, and handmade bookbinding process make this project one to keep.

The Bicycle Diaries – Document – NYTimes.com.