Zuma #13 1977

John Divola created this photograph in an abandoned Zuma Beach house, and it feels like an action painting by other means! The light and shadow dapple the interior, the detritus of human occupation scattered everywhere, and the walls are marked with ghostly graffiti. I wonder what it was like for Divola to enter this space, seeing its history of abandonment, and then to add his own marks to it. It's like he's having a conversation with the space itself, layering his gestures onto its existing textures. It reminds me of Gordon Matta-Clark's building cuts or Robert Smithson’s land art – artists intervening in space. Look at the way the light streams through the boarded-up window. The shadows create these sharp, graphic lines that cut across the room. Think about Fontana slashing the canvas or the light gashes of a de Kooning. Each gesture carries a weight, a history. We’re all in this ongoing dialogue, working with and against what came before, trying to make sense of the world through our own embodied expression. Every artist is in conversation with the past, and hopefully, with the future too.