When presented with a patch of wet cement and a chance at immortality in
the built environment of the city, what do you write? Love notes,
political slogans, band names, and simple declarations of existence on a
certain date; just about every kind of message is etched in the cement
of the sidewalks of San Francisco.
In The Cement Project, Lyle reveals the city as something other than a
collection of streets and buildings: It is the convergence of all the
ideas and aspirations of everyone who has ever lived there. The cement
etchings, presented in an extensive collection of photographs, create a
narrative that accompanies a walk down any street. The wet cement
functions as a time-lapse photo, encapsulating the voices of decades of
city dwellers.
In the spirit of both Walter Benjamin and Jane Jacobs, the photographs
of cement etchings are for Lyle a jumping-off point, triggering tales of
lost legends, lost utopias, and lost love in a city that is constantly
decaying, regenerating, and accumulating new layers of history--a
fascinating meditation on the art of walking, reading, and remembering
in an urban environment.
