Real Estate #912715 1991

Henry Wessel made this photograph, sometime before 2018, of what seems to be a rental property. The colour palette is so muted it's almost like a faded memory, and the composition is deceptively simple. But that's how photography gets you, isn't it? The texture of the stucco walls, that cracked pavement leading to the door, even the slightly wonky fence—they all speak to the lived-in-ness of the place. I keep coming back to that little patch of grass. It's not manicured, it's just there, doing its thing. Wessel's work often had this way of elevating the mundane, making you see the beauty in the everyday. It’s like those painters from the 1980s who were doing 'bad painting' on purpose. Thinking about other artists, the New Topographics photographers come to mind. But where they were all about a cool, detached observation, Wessel's work feels warmer, more human. It embraces ambiguity, letting you fill in the blanks and make your own story.