Zuma #18 1977

This photograph, Zuma #18, captures a room’s slow decay, punctuated by moments of intervention. You can almost see John Divola there, in the space, moving and acting. It’s such a simple gesture, a dance between control and chance. Look at the contrast between the pale, watery light outside and the graffiti and staged abandonment within. The room seems to be breathing in the ocean, its gentle rhythm, and its promise of change. The walls have been touched, marked, and violated, yet the ocean view persists, a constant reminder of something beyond. I wonder what Divola was thinking as he sprayed those marks, each one a decision, a statement. It makes me think about Robert Smithson and Gordon Matta-Clark—artists who engage with architecture and landscape. There’s an entire conversation happening here. This work reminds us that art is always an act of reaching, of trying to say something that can’t quite be said. It’s in this ambiguity that its power lies, always open to new interpretations, new connections, new feelings.