Equivalent 1927

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, ‘Equivalent,’ and like a painter, he seems to have captured it quickly with a decisive gesture, using light and shadow to build up this world. It's like a landscape but there's no earth, only the sky. I bet Stieglitz was trying to get at something beyond the surface, something about feeling, or maybe even belief. To get an equivalent – which is what he called this and many others – he must have been looking up a lot, just trying to find a view that spoke to him. Like a painter mixing colors on a palette, Stieglitz played with tones to create a visual poem. There’s something about the way the clouds swirl and gather that reminds me of a Cy Twombly painting, all energy and emotion. Ultimately, this is how artists talk to each other, across time and medium. They keep pushing, keep searching, using what they have to make something new.