Self-Portrait in Window 1947

Ilse Bing made this “Self-Portrait in Window” with a camera at some point in her life, which is a thing, isn't it? A portrait of the self, but reflected, blurred, and mediated through glass and lace. I’m drawn to the way Bing uses the window as a frame within a frame, creating layers of reality and reflection. The eye dances between the sharp lines of the window frame and the soft, blurred image of the artist herself. There’s a tension between the geometric and the organic. The window is adorned with plants – life trying to get in or maybe trying to get out. The whole composition reminds me of someone like Hannah Höch, another artist who played with collage and fragmented images to create new perspectives. Like Höch, Bing seems to be asking us to question what we see and how we see it, challenging the idea of a singular, fixed viewpoint. In the end, it's an invitation to look a little closer, to see the world in all its complexity and ambiguity.