Going to see a work of art that’s so canonical that its fame almost overshadows itself as just a work of art was quite a fascinating thing.  In July I spent a weekend in Florence and was lucky enough to visit Michelangelo’s David, a work that so iconic  that it seemed like in every Italian museum shop existed some kind of David memorabilia.   From stickers, patches, post cards, paper weights, it seemed that the idea of David was everywhere, so when confronted with the real thing, my feelings of awe were just as strong as my thoughts about the spectacle of David.  The Accademia in Florence where David is displayed is constantly packed with visitors so naturally its difficult to get pictures of the statue without also taking pictures of other tourists.  I was also struck by just how much this one statue was being visually reproduced.  I wonder how many pictures of David are taken per day, 10,000? 50,000?  What was I doing just taking pictures that would be virtually identical to the numerous pictures I could find online of David from the same angle.  In the age of the internet, I wouldn’t have to look very hard for a public domain image of David that I wouldn’t be able to discern from a photo that I took on my own.  The reason to take pictures of David in many cases I found, I observed several people were taking pictures on snapchat, is to prove oneself as a witness to the spectacle.  Thinking about this while looking at the statue I decided that I wanted to capture this phenomenon among people, to remember Michelangelo’s master work, but also understand it within a contemporary context as a cultural icon.