Reg Heron 1975

Curator: Here we have Mike Mandel’s “Reg Heron” from 1975, a c-print that pulses with almost staged naturalness. What springs to mind for you? Editor: An upward glance into harsh light – almost pleading. There’s something deliberately mundane, but soulful happening here. A working-class hero yearning for…what? Escape? Salvation? A decent wage? The texture almost feels manufactured too. Curator: The printing process of C-prints became widely available, democratizing color photography but also creating this specific mass produced aesthetic. It’s pop art filtered through a very distinct photochemical lens, isn’t it? Think about the labor, the darkroom hours, the fixing agents… it is so different than something purely digital now. Editor: Definitely, each of those processes embeds something of the maker, of the time… Do you think this picture is reverential or satirical, or playing with the ambiguity? Curator: I find myself swinging between them. There is the earnest gaze upwards and also how the caption becomes part of the art. It really pulls me into considering themes about labor, specifically how Heron could represent any worker, toiling away. And he just…looks like he should be playing guitar in a rock band! Editor: That is definitely what that gaze and haircut evoke. I’m struck by how that interplay between light and shadow defines the emotional content here, almost like he's illuminated by hope yet simultaneously burdened by its very unlikeliness. It brings into sharp relief the human cost inherent to every product, every transaction…who made this c-print exactly, too? What do we know of their perspective? Curator: It speaks of longing and questions our idea of the romanticized or the heroic—all that feeling captured in a mass producible image… It offers an accessibility alongside this thoughtful construction. Editor: Exactly – the image whispers untold stories, histories woven through each print—revealing more each time you choose to notice the mechanics, the intention…and Reg Heron, staring out into the sun.