John Szarkowski 1975

This is Mike Mandel’s photographic portrait of John Szarkowski. I don't know when it was made, but it's a photograph printed on a small card, maybe even a trading card. I love it! Here's Szarkowski, the famous curator of photography at MoMA, dressed in a baseball uniform with an old-timey mustache, holding up a baseball glove with this almost absurd grin on his face. He's got this nerdy coolness, right? It's not a cool uniform. It's not cool glasses, or that glove. It's a kind of uncool cool, an intellectual goofiness. I wonder, what was Mandel thinking? Was he trying to capture Szarkowski's dry wit, or maybe poke fun at the art world's seriousness? Or was it just a playful moment between two people? To me, this image really speaks to that collision of art and everyday life, and how photography can capture those weird, beautiful moments that painting can't.