Doug Stewart 1975

Mike Mandel made this black and white photo of Doug Stewart at an unknown date. Mandel's work often plays with the conventions of portraiture, and here, the focus is less on capturing a likeness and more on exploring the idea of identity through the trappings of baseball culture. The texture of the image itself is intriguing; the graininess gives it a tactile quality, as if you could feel the individual specks of silver halide on the photographic paper. Doug Stewart looks like any other baseball fan, or player. The baseball glove in the shot feels emblematic—a symbol of something bigger than just a game. It reminds me of the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, who cataloged industrial structures with a similar deadpan approach. Both artists highlight the beauty in the mundane. Like the Bechers, Mandel invites us to look closer, to question what we see, and to find poetry in the ordinary.