Angels 2002

Arsen Savadov made this photographic print, Angels, at an unknown date. It feels like a statement, but one that is strangely suspended and unresolved, like a half-remembered dream. The composition’s cool palette is striking, with its somber greys and blues and bleached whites. I keep coming back to the five figures, each one adorned with a pair of wings. They are arranged within a boat, posed in a way that feels at once classical, but also subtly perverse. The wings themselves are rough and handmade, their artifice emphasized against the realness of the men’s bodies. In an artwork like this, ambiguity becomes its own kind of revelation. It reminds me of Jeff Wall, who creates similarly staged photographs that play with narrative and cinematic tropes. Art isn’t about providing answers, but about inviting us to question the world around us.