Selfie-self-portrait 2019

Curator: So, we're looking at Alfred Freddy Krupa's 2019 work, "Selfie-self-portrait," a gelatin-silver print. Editor: Intensely introspective, wouldn't you say? And immediate, despite the technical medium. It almost feels like I’ve stumbled into someone’s raw, exposed moment. Curator: I'm drawn to the way Krupa uses the monochrome palette. It really strips away the distractions, pushing us to focus on form and, dare I say, the artist's soul, right? Editor: Absolutely. The silver gelatin gives it this dreamy, almost ethereal quality. You have the gritty textures of what looks like a sidewalk melding with the vulnerable human form. There’s a push-pull. What could represent his symbolic intention with concrete presence through feet or a torso, maybe all we grasp from a glimpse are the superficial parts that comprise "self". The very nature of a gelatin-silver print carries its own history too, you know? Curator: A ghost of processes, past artistic gestures. Editor: Precisely! What does that mean for the selfie, traditionally a marker of the instantaneous? It turns the selfie concept inside out, becoming something reflective and almost timeless in a way a digital image just can’t manage. Curator: It's interesting, this choice of calling it selfie, what does the artist reveal when making a piece that includes body and setting at such close distance? Could this be a conscious reclamation or critique of the whole "selfie" phenomenon? Perhaps he suggests the superficial view and the real essence might converge into something unexpectedly profound. Editor: I like that read a lot. He is questioning what has become an overused medium to unveil something sincere. It's as if he is attempting to unearth meaning through, ironically, what society deems a superficial lens. It does strike me with that hint of classical themes: it seems to nod to depictions of the human body as landscape, perhaps suggesting something raw and immediate while honoring long-lasting images and practices in a singular shot. The gelatin silver gives that feel of durability. Curator: Agreed! The use of light is almost painterly... there is beauty among supposed disarray. It creates a rich surface full of shadow and emotion. Ultimately the raw moment allows for open-ended and almost infinite contemplation. Editor: It has me wondering how a single click manages to reveal something both so exposed, as a soul on the lens, and profoundly intimate and ultimately silent in intent and design.