Braat afpak pers 1931 - 1937

This gelatin silver print, "Braat afpak pers" was created by an anonymous artist, and what I see is the image of an industrial machine. I can imagine the artist setting up the shot, thinking about the composition, and maybe even feeling a sense of awe at the scale and complexity of the machine. The metal frame, the weight of the press itself, and the cranks used to release the press. The artist has really focused on the geometry of the mechanism with their camera; the rectangles of each tier echo one another. The cranks make a radial design, suggesting an iterative cyclical mechanism; a cog in the wheel if you will! The plate is almost sculptural in its nature, it reminds me of some of the minimalist work being made at the time. The artist’s practice, and the practice of artists in general, is about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. It’s about reframing our understanding of an object by showing it in a different light, and that is exactly what we have here.