Untitled (portrait of a decease man, view of entire room in funeral home) 1945 - 1949

Editor: This is an untitled photograph by John Deusing depicting a funeral home. The black and white tones give it an eerie, dreamlike quality. What strikes you most about this image? Curator: The formality, the sheer theatrical staging of grief. It's like a still life, but with a human presence at its heart. Does it feel staged, or genuinely mournful to you? Editor: It feels staged, distanced. I'm not sure if I feel any grief. Curator: Exactly! Perhaps Deusing aimed to capture not the emotion itself, but the societal performance of grief. The excessive floral arrangements almost suffocate the scene. Editor: I hadn't thought of it that way. It’s less about the individual and more about the ritual. Curator: Precisely. And sometimes, it's in that ritual that we find a strange sort of comfort.