From 1999 to 2006, Eric Percher worked in finance, meaning he
inhabited cubicles within offices within buildings within the grid of
New York City. Everybody was making money. They didn’t mind working all
hours. Percher ran into a woman named Julia one night in 2007. The
office lights went off at 10:00 p.m., but she was new and didn’t know
how to turn them back on, so she just kept working in the dark. He took
her picture.
Percher’s series of photographs, begun in 2006 and completed last
year, is called Work. All the titles are the same: first name
and floor number (for instance, Julia on 16). The effect is both
archival and a little biblical: Each character can be located in this
highly organized drama. There are no group portraits. Each worker is
alone against the backdrop of the hive, which probably explains why
most of the images were shot at night, after hours. (After seven years
of working in the towers, Percher had broad access through friends and
colleagues.)
Some of the images zoom in on the individual or on close scenes.
More often the photographs zoom out, locating individuals (like John on
14, seen from a neighboring tower) deep within the boxes-within-boxes
setting of midtown New York architecture and business.
The strength of the series is its conflicted heart. On the one hand,
this crisply captured environment could not be more stifling. Percher
left finance for photography right around when he started shooting this
series, and his photographs (some overtly ominous) reflect his
disillusion with this life. On the other hand, it’s cozy, secure,
reassuring—especially its promise of regularity, which has been
undone since these photographs were taken. Maybe at one point,
Work looked more like a nightmare than a dream; I’m not sure
that’s still true. 
