Songs of the Sky 1923

Alfred Stieglitz created this photograph, *Songs of the Sky*, using gelatin silver print. Look how Stieglitz coaxes out these soft, amorphous shapes, and how the tones shift from velvety darks to luminous grays. It’s like he's sculpting with light! You know, for me, it's all about how the materials speak. Think about the way light dances on a surface, almost like brushstrokes. Focus on the upper section of the image and you can see a vertical stream of cloud dividing the image, a celestial spine. It suggests both solidity and ephemerality. It's this constant push and pull between forms that makes the image so compelling, so alive. This piece reminds me a bit of Gerhard Richter's cloud paintings, where abstraction and representation blur. Art isn't about answers, it's about the questions we ask, and the spaces we create in between.