Geof Winningham 1975

Curator: This gelatin-silver print, created in 1975 by Mike Mandel, presents a portrait of Geof Winningham. Editor: Ah, there's an undeniable nostalgia in this image. It's striking! The textures seem palpable, from the plaid shirt to the wood of the bat. Is this a formal baseball portrait of Winningham or something a bit more subversive? Curator: Mandel’s series intentionally plays with those expectations. It disrupts traditional portraiture through material means. This is an image lifted from the realm of collectible baseball cards, and repurposed through an engagement with portraiture’s visual and social rhetoric. Consider the cultural function of such trading cards, typically reproduced for mass consumption and circulated amongst fans. Editor: Absolutely. The uniform size, the stark black and white, even the typeface all scream baseball card! Yet Winningham's gaze… it's almost contemplative. There's a human quality here that goes beyond the generic athlete persona. Do you think there is a critique here of the commodification of sports, too? Curator: That tension is really at the heart of it, isn’t it? Mandel repurposes vernacular photographic formats to look at the systems that circulate value. Note the gesture and look, they mimic traditional tropes while the format invites questions about art's relationship with labor, commercial exchange and the media’s power. Editor: I can't help but imagine Winningham as more than a baseball player in this portrait. He looks like someone holding onto hope in a changing world. It's a reminder that even in our idols, we find reflections of ourselves. I wonder, who decided on this combination with a baseball bat specifically? Curator: We can't know for sure what motivated that element exactly. Though, in placing Winnington with that object we gain access to questions concerning fame and sports, as commodities circulating within complex cultural networks of production and reception. Editor: This print gets under your skin and makes you rethink the very nature of image and portrait. It starts off looking straightforward then leaves us swimming in ambiguity. Curator: Indeed, this small unassuming work really underscores just how materially infused, socially constructed and culturally rich a "simple" photograph can be.