Clockwise from top left: Egypt, Giza 1953; Egypt, Giza 1997; United States, New York 1993; United States, New York 19--   (Photo: Bruno Rosier/Courtesy of Aperture)

While perusing a Parisian flea market, photographer Bruno Rosier came across a set of mid-century photographs of a man (identified only as “R.T.”) standing in front of famous landscapes and monuments—“very tourist, very typical places”—from Egypt to Uruguay to Greece. With the help of a grant from the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Rosier then traveled the globe re-creating all 25 of these banal snapshots, down to the centrally posed and often badly framed figures. He started with the view from the Brooklyn Bridge, pre-9/11 (“I returned this week, to make another work without the World Trade Center,” Rosier says, adding, “Thirty years in the future, another photographer must do the same tour”). The result is a weird sort of déjà vu, a phenomenon that’s been attributed to everything from a simple cognitive glitch to an attempt to repeat a past life. But in Rosier’s show at Aperture gallery and the accompanying book, the original, selfish reason for taking the picture—capturing that “I was here” moment—is elevated to a collective memory. Look, Rosier seems to be saying, He was here, I was here. And you, too, have been here before.

Related:

• Archive: “Art Features”
• Articles by Karen Rosenberg
• Table of Contents: Mar 13, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!