Denise Howard, St. Gabriel, Louisiana 27 - 2000

Deborah Luster’s photograph presents an image from St. Gabriel, Louisiana, made using a photographic plate. The sepia tones and distressed surface give the photograph an old-timey feel, but there’s something otherworldly about this figure. It’s a person dressed in a business suit, but also wearing a grotesque mask. The figure is making a face, poking its tongue out—what’s up with that? I wonder if the person beneath the mask is a performer, or someone trying to transform. I imagine Luster, a contemporary artist, thinking about the history of portraiture. By creating a space that merges documentary and staged elements, Luster creates a space to challenge our perceptions of beauty, identity, and representation. It reminds me of Diane Arbus, exploring the grotesque and the surreal through photography. Masks, suits, tongues—Luster asks: can we ever truly know who someone is, or are we all just performing roles?