Dog Show, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 1979

Ken Graves made this photograph, Dog Show, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, using black and white film at an unknown date. It's a study in contrasts, a real chiaroscuro, but instead of light and dark, we have the rigid gingham tablecloth meeting the chaotic curls of the poodle. The texture is everything here. Look at the way the poodle's fur absorbs light, a dense, impenetrable mass against the woman's smooth, almost mannequin-like face in the background. That fur is a world unto itself, a landscape of tiny shadows. The woman is cropped by the frame, and cradles the dog, obscuring her figure, making her an amorphous shape. You could read that gesture in so many ways. This reminds me a bit of some of John Baldessari's photographic works, capturing the mundane and finding the absurd within it. It's the kind of image that invites you to create your own narrative, to fill in the blanks with your own imagination. There's no single "right" way to see it. And that, to me, is the beauty of art.