T-15 1976

Steve Kahn made this gelatin silver print, titled T-15, at an unknown date. It shows the architectural details of a room in three panels stacked vertically: ceiling, wall, and floor. It's an image that evokes both the ubiquity and the strangeness of the built environments we inhabit. As a Californian artist in the late 20th century, Kahn was deeply involved in deconstructing images and challenging institutional conventions. He worked at a time when the photographic image was becoming ever more pervasive in society. In this context, he used photography to invite the viewer to question how our perceptions are shaped and mediated. T-15 is a work that makes the familiar strange, prompting us to look at the spaces we inhabit with new eyes. To understand the power of this image, we can look to the broader cultural context of image-making, considering the social, political, and economic forces at play in visual culture. The study of photographic archives and critical texts can shed light on how artists like Kahn challenged existing social norms and critiqued the institutions of art.