Study for Scrub 1998

Marco Breuer created "Study for Scrub" using photographs that he physically manipulates. Breuer isn't your conventional photographer; he's more like a sculptor with light-sensitive paper. Here, the surface is worked almost like a burnishing ground, a metal plate used for intaglio printing, with a multitude of tiny scratches. The texture is everything; the light plays off the tiny indentations creating a shimmering effect. What's fascinating here is that Breuer is using photographic paper as a purely material thing, a surface to be abraded and marked. The labor involved is evident. The image is the result of this intense, repetitive action and is a testament to the artist's engagement with the physical process of making. Breuer's work challenges our assumptions about photography, pushing it into the realm of the handmade and the tactile. It makes you wonder, where does the photograph end, and the crafted object begin?