Toren van de Geerteskerk te Kloetinge 1890 - 1920

This is an old photograph, of the tower of the Geerteskerk in Kloetinge, a record of a building and also of a moment in time. I see the artist looking up at the tower through the lens, the monumentality of the building, and the artist perhaps thinking of the people who built it, the culture that surrounds it. It is a material object, this church tower, made of brick and stone, but also an idea, a point of connection between earth and sky. The marks on the print are a kind of history, too, of where the photograph has been stored. The camera can be a tool for documentation but also a tool for abstracting reality, the soft focus and monochromatic tones creating a sense of distance. I think that the artist in that moment was like, let's make this building immortal.