Chicago c. 1950

Aaron Siskind made this photograph in Chicago, and when you look at it, you think, wow, that's a painting. Siskind shows us a world of brittle textures and forms, a symphony of gray tones, light and shadow, which are the result of something breaking down and apart. What a discovery it must have been for him, finding something like this in the world. To see the beauty of a surface peeling apart. I wonder if Siskind had some awareness of abstraction when he made this work. There are strong echoes of Abstract Expressionist painting from the 1940s and 50s. You know, the way the shapes assert themselves on the surface. The gesture of each crack. We are all in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas, influencing each other's creativity across time. Isn't that cool? I love how this photograph shows us that what we see can mean many things, depending on how we look at it.