Mama and Papa 1 1964

Otto Muehl made this black and white photograph, Mama and Papa 1, using props and human models. It's like a stage, right? I mean, look at the way he's arranged everything. There is a performative aspect to it all, this staging of the domestic sphere. The texture is so important, you can almost feel the grit of the background surface, the sheen of the balloon. Everything is so starkly defined, and then the softer tones of the body. It looks like he might have used a spotlight to enhance the contrast here. The artist's touch is so present, you can see the thought process right there in the choices he made. Maybe he was thinking about Man Ray, or the Surrealists, or maybe he was just trying to figure out the power dynamics of family life. Art isn't about answers, it's about asking the right questions, and Muehl certainly does that here.