John Szarkowski 1975

This is Mike Mandel's photo of John Szarkowski. It’s undated and was probably made as part of Mandel’s project photographing people involved in the baseball card industry. I am really interested in the way the image is built up, the contrasts between different photographic textures and representational modes. John Szarkowski is wearing a baseball uniform, holding a baseball glove, and sporting the most amazing moustache. Szarkowski seems to be posing in front of a backdrop, a photograph of a rock formation, which, in turn, has another smaller framed photograph placed on top of it. There is a tension between Szarkowski as a 'real' person, and the theatricality of the arrangement. The use of black and white, with its different tonal intensities and graphic starkness, contributes to the complexity of the image. The eye is constantly moving around the picture frame, making connections and finding dissonance. Like Sherrie Levine or Richard Prince, Mandel’s work asks important questions about the status of the photographic image.