Martha Rosler: The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems

In “The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems” (1974–1975) Martha Rosler bridged the concerns of conceptual art with those of political documentary. The work, a series of twenty‑one black‑and‑white photographs, twenty‑four text panels and three blank panels, embraces the codes of the photo‑text experiments of the late 1960s and applies them to the social reality of New York’s Lower East Side. The prevailing critical view of “The Bowery” focuses on its implicit rejection, or critique, of established modes of documentary. In this illustrated, extended essay on the work by Rosler, Steve Edwards argues that although the critical attitude towards documentary is an important dimension of the piece, it does not exhaust the meaning of the project.