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Making Metaphors From Photos - NYTimes.com

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Making Metaphor
From Photo
Rena Silverman Dec. 12, 2014 3
Things occur, Nathan Lyons said, referring to how he starts making photographs, which has not changed for 60 years. I
simply collect images that I respond to, theres no script to what Im doing, its really based on my interaction with the things
that I see that intrigue me or interest me or question me.
But, what about things after they occur?
Thats when he arranges most of his photographs into diptychs, either on a wall or in a book. Suddenly two images take on a
third meaning.
For Return Your Mind To Its Upright Position, a book and exhibition at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery in Manhattan, he placed
an image of a rocking chair trapped inside a wire plant guard next to one of a city wall layered with scribbles: ADHD sprayed
in large bubble letters and a smaller silk-screened message to Reclaim your Life. Suddenly, this trapped rocking chair framed
alongside these messages takes on new meaning as metaphor.
In metaphor, you are really taking two different elements and bringing them together to form a third, said Mr. Lyons, 84. Its

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Making Metaphors From Photos - NYTimes.com

like Dylan Thomas, his use of the word green in one of his poems, where he places it changes the implications of the color.
This idea comes from his education as a poet. Born in Jamaica, Queens, to a family of mirror manufacturers, Mr. Lyons was
expected to enter the family business. Rather than follow the path of expected courses at Alfred State Universitys Technical
College, however, he gravitated to summer classes in philosophy and creative writing.
When the poet Galway Kinnell asked students in his creative writing course at Alfred to complete the semester by submitting a
poem, Mr. Lyons did not like this either. He walked to a bar miles away, drank whiskey, and wrote his way back through the
thickets in a notepad, submitting it as his final poem.
He has been hooked on metaphors ever since.
His plan to switch his studies was interrupted by the Korean War, where he enlisted in the Air Force as a photographer. He
served in a reconnaissance technical squadron in Korea, where he processed thousands of photos daily, and later supervised a
photo intelligence unit. His last year in the military was spent in Atlanta both as photographer and news writer. He composed
poetry on the side.
In 1954, he returned to Alfred as an English major, but this was a turning point for other reasons. In a Quonset that served as
the student union, he met John Wood, a professor of design who had studied photography with Harry Callahan. At one point
Mr. Wood turned to Mr. Lyons and said, You know, a photograph can be more than just a photograph.
That whole notion intrigued me, Mr. Lyons said. I was probably just right to hear what he had to say.
Mr. Woods comment didnt set in right away. Mr. Lyons spent the next several years discovering its meaning.
After Mr. Lyons graduated from Alfred in 1957, Mr. Wood encouraged him to show his photographs to curators, with the goal of
getting to Chicago, where he could study with Aaron Siskind or Callahan. Instead, a failed Jeep left him with a used Plymouth
station wagon and an urgent need to find a job in order to get to Chicago. Some friends let him stay with them in Rochester
while he searched. After several interviews, he landed a position at the George Eastman House and became curator.

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Making Metaphors From Photos - NYTimes.com

He organized groundbreaking shows, including Lee Friedlanders first solo exhibition. In 1969, Mr. Lyons left the museum
because of issues with trustees and formed the Visual Studies Workshop in a 3,000-square-foot wood shop with a handful of
graduate students and the help of SUNY Buffalo. All the while, Mr. Lyons, who moved around the country for teaching
positions, kept photographing the urban and social landscapes around him, including text on walls.
Many ideas become expressed on walls, people writing on walls or posters on walls, he said.
This really took off in his later work.
One photograph is a whole assortment of found typographical display. Computerized words like Bst, a smaller OBEY, an
oval that says YOUR REMEDY overhung by a ripped printout of a diving man crashing into it. Stripes behind IN YOUR
HEAD on an arrow pointing right and A REASON FOR LIVING. All of these statements contrast the months or years of
hand-scribbled announcements, like RiNG BELL.
These wall remarks, he said, are pronouncements of certain issues in time.
And time, another theme in his work, is something he employs through his use of sequence.
Take the massive grid at the front of the Bruce Silverstein Gallery, which is on display until Dec. 20. With 32 diptychs, eight
frames across and four down, this sequence nearly fills the wall, with each row across featuring images from one of Mr. Lyonss
four books.
Its sort of like Walt Whitmans Leaves of Grass, he said. There are references back and forth that connect through all four
books.
But, unlike his image-making process, none of Mr. Lyonss books just occur. The first book, Notations in Passing (1974),
took him 10 years; the second book, Riding 1st Class on the Titanic! (1999), took 20 years; the third book, After 9/11 (2003),
took 13 months (this was after he retired); and the fourth book took six years.

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Making Metaphors From Photos - NYTimes.com

I want people to go to them once, get some level of meaning out of them, then go to them again, he said. And again and again
and again. That to me is when its really working.
Follow@Rena_Silvermanand@nytimesphotoonTwitter.LensisalsoonFacebook.
A version of this article appears in print on 12/14/2014, on page MB8 of the NewYork edition with the headline: One Plus One Equals Three.

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