Tom Barrow 1975

Curator: This is "Tom Barrow," a 1975 print by Mike Mandel, part of a series he made compiling portraits with baseball cards. It strikes me as quite ordinary on the surface, yet quietly subversive in its ordinariness. What’s your immediate take? Editor: Ah, it’s the nonchalant gaze skyward. Instantly, I feel I know Tom— a character out of a Kerouac novel perhaps, gazing into some endless possibility. Is it yearning or simply spaced-out enjoyment? Curator: Exactly. Mandel’s gesture draws from both street photography and conceptual art. We're dealing with standardized, mass-produced baseball card prints. It uses a cheap printing press to show everyday figures, subtly questioning the elevated status traditionally given to photographs presented in galleries. The production and display is essential. Editor: Mass production does rob us of the magic somewhat, doesn't it? Yet it also levels the playing field – we're all just Tom, looking at something just beyond our grasp. He’s like every hipster I’ve ever met, gazing poetically! Curator: Mandel isn't elevating any heroes but implicating us in systems of valuation. This democratization suggests he's as intrigued by labor and commodity as he is with ideas about how we project narratives. This one resonates for what its availability says about representation. Editor: Representation! Now you put a finer point on it. I get the sense of yearning that's universal but grounded. It's powerful, even poignant. There is, beneath the moustache and glasses, something deeply touching about this dude and how he offers the sky. Curator: Yes, even through these modes of reproduction, portraiture provides, doesn’t it, the illusion of closeness? That even in a culture where mass production and quick printing determine visual reality, individuals—whether baseball players or the bespectacled Tom—find space to dream. Editor: Dream is right. He’s just looking up... what is there even TO see, except more possibility. It gets to you. Alright. Curator: And with a turn of the head, the dialogue begins again, which is all anyone could hope.