Sink and Tub 1986

Editor: This is Sandy Skoglund's "Sink and Tub" from 1986. It’s a photograph, but it also seems to be an installation… which makes it feel theatrical. All those saturated colors! It feels unsettling. What's your take on this piece? Curator: The unsettling feeling you pick up on is key, I think. Skoglund works with constructed environments to stage photographs, which challenges our understanding of photographic truth. We tend to believe photographs are a kind of direct index to reality. Her process denies that assumption. Editor: Right, it’s totally artificial, like a movie set! But how does this play into a historical reading? Curator: Skoglund emerged during a period when debates around postmodernism and photography were really heating up. Artists were questioning originality and authorship, and how images circulate in culture. This piece is a commentary on that I think, and her background in performance art might point to similar theatrical underpinnings that critique societal structures and expected behaviors, especially for women. Editor: The clashing color schemes contribute to that chaos. Is it meant to be satirical? Curator: Absolutely, that hyperreality evokes consumerism, mass media, and the artificiality of modern life, reflecting a world saturated with imagery and manufactured experiences. I wonder how this prefigures image making today, after the advent of digital environments and CGI? What are your thoughts about the implications for photographic imagery and the societal impacts it has, today? Editor: That’s interesting… it seems incredibly relevant. Maybe even more now, than it was then. Thank you for putting it in perspective. Curator: It really demonstrates the power of constructed realities in art and the social impact of image creation throughout the years.