Cím nélkül (Tál) (Untitled [Bowl]) 1935

Márta Aczél made this untitled image of a bowl with who knows what, sometime during her career. Look at the play of darks and lights, like a basket woven from pure light. I imagine Aczél setting up this still life in her studio, moving the lamp a little this way, a little that way, trying to find the angle where the shadows become as important as the object itself. It must have been so absorbing, totally meditative. You know, sometimes the most ordinary objects can become extraordinary when you really look at them. The way the light filters through the woven structure, creating this amazing dotted shadow, it reminds me of some of the Bauhaus photography experiments. The surface almost dissolves, right? It's like she's asking us to see beyond the bowl, to see the light, the shadow, the space around it. That’s what all artists want, to make us notice.