Death 2017

Alfred Freddy Krupa made this black and white photograph, entitled Death, sometime around now. In it, a dead bird lies on the ground amongst scattered feathers and stones. There is something strangely tender about the image. I imagine Krupa stopping, seeing the small corpse, and feeling the need to memorialize it. It’s an impulse I recognize— to capture a moment of fragility. There is a strong tradition of still life in art history, often featuring objects like fruit or flowers, but here the artist has turned his attention to something more ephemeral. A small life extinguished. The high contrast of the black and white amplifies the stark reality. It reminds me a little of the memento mori paintings of the past, a meditation on mortality. What might seem like an insignificant event becomes a moment of reflection on the transient nature of existence.