Valise d'Adam 1949

Frederick Sommer made this photograph, Valise d'Adam, from found materials. The arrangement of the dull, grey objects feels unsettling, as though the artist were working out a dark joke. Look at the surface texture; it’s rough and pockmarked. Is that a tabletop? It feels like everything’s been left out in the elements for too long. There’s a broken, metallic object at the top, some disembodied limbs, and a doll hanging upside down. It reminds me a little of Kurt Schwitters’ Merz collages, or maybe even some of the odder Dada assemblages. That doll is really something else. It’s so smooth and bright compared to the rest of the composition, and its eyes are so intense. The way it’s posed—or impaled—gives me the creeps, yet I keep looking. The whole scene is kind of nauseating, but in a way that makes you want to keep turning it over in your mind, like a bad dream. Art doesn't always have to be easy, sometimes it has to grab you and shake you up.