Untitled, from the series Dingbat 1983

Judy Fiskin made this black and white photograph, Untitled, from the series Dingbat. It’s not a big thing, about 6cm by 6cm – kinda tiny, really! There’s a certain dryness to the image, a flatness that almost verges on the deadpan. I keep thinking about how Fiskin frames this unremarkable apartment building, and the almost confrontational plainness. Look at the way the light falls evenly across the facade, revealing every little detail. The diamonds are like little exclamation points on an otherwise totally beige building. It’s not about beauty, it’s more like an inventory, a way of seeing the world that’s both detached and incredibly intimate. This makes me think of Ed Ruscha’s photo books, those deadpan images of gas stations and swimming pools. There’s a similar spirit here, a kind of quiet, almost subversive attention to the everyday. Art is always a conversation, right? Fiskin and Ruscha are two artists thinking about the same things, just with different accents.