Tableau Oppedette 1980

Editor: Dieter Appelt's "Tableau Oppedette" from 1980, strikes me as quite unsettling. The monochromatic photograph shows what looks like a white shroud pegged down in a field. What do you make of it? Curator: For me, this piece emphasizes the labor and process of creating an image. Look at the manipulation of the landscape itself. What materials do you see, and how are they arranged? Think about the act of staging this scene for the camera. Editor: I see the contrast between the natural setting, all rough grass and unkempt weeds, with that stark white, clearly artificial...thing...staked so precisely into the ground. Curator: Precisely. Appelt is using the photographic process to document a deliberate intervention. Consider how the photographic medium itself contributes to the artwork. How does photography alter our perception of this tableau? What is its purpose here, beyond just documentation? Editor: Well, without the photo, we wouldn't *know* about the intervention, right? It's like the photo is both evidence of the act and the final artwork itself. I'm curious, what social statement do you think Appelt was making here, given it's titled Tableau? It is about framing our expectations perhaps, of nature and presentation, because to me a shroud connotes death. Curator: Death is an interesting way to view it. Consider the tableau, or stage setting and how that idea collides or melds with environmental concerns, human intervention and temporality. By presenting this staged event through photography, he's challenging those high art conventions and really inviting a deeper consideration of the physical reality being presented and the means of producing art itself. What does thinking about it that way, about *making* rather than representing, bring to mind? Editor: Thinking about the *making* does make it less like a haunting and more like a question about what constitutes "art," I suppose. It feels like Appelt is playing with definitions and processes as much as, or even more than, with some kind of deep symbolism. Thanks! Curator: Indeed. Considering art through the lens of materiality and labor truly opens up exciting possibilities.