Commerce in View

Tom Paiva’s and William Livingston’s photographs have as their nominal subject the heavy industry of the Port of Long Beach, the second-busiest container port in the United States after Los Angeles. They attest to the fact that today over ninety percent of the world’s trade is carried by sea – a reality that is easily forgotten at a time of speedy international air travel and the instant gratifications of surfing the Internet. Sea trade, if we think about it at all,seems like a ancient relic – the stuff of dreamers and voyagers navigating the globe in slow, cumbersome journeys, worn down by the weight of iron and steel.  And yet it is through maritime trade that commerce persists, reminding us of the physical realities that underpin our global information age.