Workers on the New Uruguayan School of Architecture, Montevideo after 1945

Jeanne Mandello made this photograph of workers in Montevideo, but when I look at it, I think about mark making. Here we see the process of construction, not in its finished state but in the midst of becoming. Look at the way Mandello has composed the workers against the sky; it’s a dance between light and shadow, human effort and the elements. The textures! The rough buckets, the worn clothes, even the cloudy sky – all captured in shades of grey. The man at the front with the bucket over his head - what’s he thinking? You can feel the weight, the strain, but also this quiet dignity. It reminds me of Walker Evans' photographs of Depression-era America. Both artists share a commitment to documenting the everyday, finding beauty and significance in the lives of ordinary people. It is this tension between the specific and the universal, the individual and the collective that makes art so compelling.