Apen in de dierentuin, juli-augustus 1933, Hamburg Possibly 1933 - 1937

This small photograph, ‘Apen in de dierentuin, juli-augustus 1933, Hamburg’ was taken by familie Wachenheimer. It feels like a found object, a glimpse into a personal story from long ago. The image shows us a group of monkeys in a zoo, seen through the mesh of a cage, rendered in grainy black and white. The fence creates a visual grid, distorting and fragmenting our view, and that really impacts how we see the scene. It is a simple, spontaneous shot, but the wire mesh is also a kind of mark making, a filter that creates a sense of texture across the image. The layers of visual separation-- the physical cage and the photographic process itself-- emphasize the distance between the viewer and the subject. It's a poignant reminder of how we observe and frame the world around us, and perhaps how we are all caged in some way. Like a Joseph Cornell box, it contains and frames a moment in time. This photograph, like all art, invites us to contemplate the act of looking itself.