Real Estate #909215 1990

Henry Wessel made this photograph, likely sometime in the 1970s, using readily available color film. It’s an everyday subject: a modest, single-story home, the kind found in suburbs across America. But it’s Wessel's artistic choices, and the way they intersect with the materials of photography, that give the work its power. The flat, shadowless light, for example, emphasizes the ordinary surfaces of the house – the clapboard siding, the asphalt roof, the neatly trimmed lawn. These are the materials of the American dream, mass-produced and widely available. Wessel’s framing is also key; he crops the house in a way that emphasizes its simple geometry. The lines are clean, the colors are muted, and the overall effect is one of quiet observation. In this way, Wessel elevates the ordinary, reminding us that even the most humble of subjects can be a source of beauty and meaning, when seen through the eyes of a skilled artist. He makes us consider the value we place on the mass-produced, and the labor that goes into creating even the simplest of homes.