CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/7/2017

David Taylor: Monuments

Back in 2015, when we first learned that Radius was planning to publish a book of David Taylor's deadpan serial photographs of the 276 obelisk monuments that line the U.S./Mexico border—installed after the Mexican-American war of 1848—we filed it under indexical photography with a sociopolitical bent, in the style of the Taryn Simon or the Bechers. Today, the book feels much more epic, like dangerous contraband. For it shows just how porous the border really is, and just how difficult and expensive—basically, impossible—it would be to built an effective partition wall. Complete with the location of each marker—down to the longitude and latitude—it's hard to believe this book actually exists as a work of art. But it does, and it makes for extremely compelling reading. Pictured here are border monument No 186, Lat 32°11.023" Long -113°47.781" in the Tule Mountains West of Venegas Pass; and Border Monument No. 2, Lat 31°47.032' Long -108°32.239' with Mount Cristo Rey Franklin Mountains in the distance.