Equivalent 1934

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, called Equivalent, sometime in the first half of the twentieth century. Stieglitz was interested in artmaking as a process of finding equivalents between the inner emotional life and the external world. The silvery blacks and whites create a sense of ethereal lightness, like wisps of thought materializing before your eyes. Look at how the clouds on the left side of the frame seem to gently dissolve into the darker areas on the right. There's an incredible range of grays here, almost like a painting, with areas of soft focus and sharp definition, the texture of the photograph has this very subtle graininess that pulls you in. This reminds me of some of Gerhard Richter’s cloud paintings, or Vija Celmins’ night skies. Both artists use subtle shifts in tone and texture to evoke a feeling of boundlessness, reminding us that art is an ongoing conversation across time, full of open questions and multiple ways of seeing.