Untitled (My Mouth) 1992

Curator: Up next we have Tanya Marcuse’s “Untitled (My Mouth),” a gelatin silver print from 1992. It’s a tightly cropped, monochromatic photograph focusing on a human mouth and the immediate surrounding area of the face and neck. Editor: Immediately, there’s a tension. The blurriness softens what could otherwise be… aggressive, maybe? It's almost unsettling, like a half-forgotten dream. Or is that just my coffee talking? Curator: Well, that openness – literally, of the mouth – can be read in different ways. Think about the semiotics of the mouth throughout history. It’s a point of entry, for speech, for nourishment, but also, and importantly, for the erotic. It holds so many cultural meanings. Editor: Mmm, erotic. Or maybe vulnerable? It’s an exposed, almost… vacant expression. There’s something quite unsettling in its quietness, particularly with the out-of-focus quality. Almost like a memory fading or a secret being kept just out of reach. It definitely evokes a mood, a certain unease. Curator: Precisely. Consider also the deliberate absence. The eyes, the nose – key identifiers – are all cropped out. Stripping away those individual markers moves this toward the universal, or perhaps, deliberately away from a straightforward ‘self-portrait.’ Editor: Good point. It becomes less about "Tanya" and more about the mouth itself, almost sculptural in its simplicity. I can see how some read this as an early statement related to identity politics, that's there even within such soft lighting. And the grayscale only emphasizes the subtle shifts in form. Curator: These subtle shifts remind us, too, about our own corporeality. The textures—the skin—are right there. Not obscured by color. Direct. Which brings us back to the symbolism of the mouth as something inherently connected to bodily experience, and cultural expressions through speaking and intimacy. Editor: I think you're right. This piece manages to be both deeply intimate and strangely impersonal at the same time. The longer I look, the more I realize it's a quiet piece that still holds the weight of unspoken stories and histories, doesn't it? Curator: Exactly, and a good demonstration of how something so small in scale can hold multiple registers. Editor: I'm taking away the idea that intimacy can still feel distant, even vulnerable.