Real Estate #908314 1990

Henry Wessel made this photograph with, I imagine, a 35mm camera, one afternoon. The sun is clear and direct, but the air itself is hazy, which softens and spreads the light, but doesn’t quite create a shadow. There’s something about the house’s pinkish tan, and the green steps, that gives the image an incredible specificity. It's like this house could only ever be that particular shade of pink. It’s as if the color itself is a clue to the whole situation. The eye then moves to the bush, clipped into a severe rectangle, and beyond it the telephone pole—which, like the house, stands so upright and stoic. Wessel was influenced by photographers like Walker Evans, and you can see how he is similarly drawn to the vernacular, the everyday, the slightly mundane. But the picture still retains an enigmatic, even poetic quality, perhaps because the color speaks to a deeper emotional state that embraces ambiguity.