Peter Gowland 1975

Mike Mandel created this baseball card of Peter Gowland at some point, using photography and printing. It’s a strange work because it flattens portraiture and sport into one reproducible image. The monochrome palette helps give the work this sense of flattening. It is almost like a drawing, but this effect is broken by the sheen of the glove. See how it reflects the light, giving it a strange depth, it looks real enough to touch. Yet all around it the background and even the mans face are a flat grey, turning the figure almost into a drawing again. This strange effect is also something seen in Fischli and Weiss's work, another artistic duo who worked with the everyday in surprising ways. Ultimately, the work is a reminder that art is everywhere, ready to be captured and recontextualized. It invites us to look closer, to question, and to find beauty in the unexpected.