Chicago 18 1949

This photograph was shot by Aaron Siskind, who was playing around with what a photograph could be. It’s a dark image, with an almost menacing tone. The subject matter is almost abstract, but with the barest of hints at figuration. It looks like a painting, or a drawing, and feels like it’s made with big, gestural marks. There’s lots of dark grey and black, offset by bright white gaps, and the whole surface feels activated. A detail I particularly like is the way that the darkest marks have a slight sheen to them, like the graphite has been polished in places. But, is it an image of a figure? It reminds me a bit of some of Goya’s darker works, with those shadowy, ill-defined forms. Siskind found abstraction in the everyday. And to me, this feels like a challenge to how we understand the world and what we consider familiar. Isn’t art just a conversation across time?