Groepsfoto 1940 - 1945

This anonymous photo, glued into an album page, presents a group portrait of young men in uniform. The monochrome palette, verging on sepia, immediately sets a somber, historical tone. The photograph is affixed to a gray album page with the handwritten address of Dieter Glitsch. Look closely, and you'll see how the composition is carefully constructed, the subjects arranged on the steps of a monument in rigid rows. This formal arrangement belies the youth of these men. The texture is smooth, the details sharp, but the effect is muted by the limited tonal range. The way the image is cut and pasted creates a strange kind of dimensionality, a kind of layered meaning. It reminds me of Gerhard Richter’s blurred photos, where the act of painting over a photograph creates a similar sense of distance and unease. Like Richter, this anonymous photographer uses the material qualities of the medium to evoke a particular emotional response, a sense of loss, of something irretrievably gone.