Untitled 1997

This untitled photograph was made by Arsen Savadov. It's a black and white image, which gives it an otherworldly quality, and I can't help but wonder about the process that went into it. The composition is wild. There are naked folks with their backs to us, instruments everywhere, and an odd-looking architectural structure in the background. It’s the kind of scene that makes you tilt your head and ask, "What is going on here?" The absence of color throws the textures into high relief. The rough, pock-marked surfaces of the instruments contrast with the smooth skin of the figures. I keep coming back to how the instruments, which are meant to create sound and harmony, are kind of awkwardly, almost violently, attached to these bodies. There's an absurd, unsettling quality to the scene. It’s like a Dadaist parade that somehow got lost in the apocalypse. I'm put in mind of Goya. The black and white, the grotesque elements...it's as if Savadov wanted to present the absurdity of the human condition. And in art, uncertainty is often the most interesting place to be.