Antiquities 2

“Larry Merrill’s photographs direct us towards that which we would have ignored. We turn and are guided back, realizing that we have been provided a generous lesson in kindness that is first, grudgingly, then gratefully, acknowledged. An astounding gift, in self-effacement we are hushed in our receipt. Our eyes adjust, refocused on remnants, as the chipped and abandoned gradually accept Merrill’s nurturing charity of vision, his attention redeeming them to a magnificence they had not enjoyed since the sculptor’s hammer proclaimed retreat. We are privy to their veterans’ soliloquies, long ignored, as those we thought speechless, if not incapacitated, now agree to talk.”

—Archie Rand, painter, writer, longtime chair of visual arts at Columbia University, currently Presidential Professor at City University of New York