Untitled (couple dancing at ball) 1965

Robert Burian made this photograph of a couple dancing at a ball; it's small, intimate, and filled with light, or, more precisely, a photographic negative of light. Look at the way the light seems to glow around the man's white suit; it's almost as if he’s being erased or made holy by the image. The woman in dark gloves and glasses seems more present, a shadow in contrast to his light. Is this about a moment? Is it about memory? Or loss? The photographic process here feels like a form of touch, an attempt to hold on to something slipping away. The background figures, caught in moments of dance and conversation, are ghostlike, barely there, adding to the dreamlike quality. This piece reminds me of other artists who capture the ephemeral, like Gerhard Richter with his blurred photographs, or Félix González-Torres, whose work often deals with memory and the passage of time. Art isn't just about what we see, but how we feel and what we remember. It's an ongoing dialogue, a dance between the artist, the image, and us.