Sculptuur van de kop van Apollo c. 1850 - 1880

Stephen Thompson made this photograph of a plaster cast of the head of Apollo. The original sculpture would have been made through subtractive processes, carving the form from a solid block of marble. But this photograph raises interesting questions about how we value the original versus the reproduction. Photography, of course, is also a making process; a darkroom technique involving paper, light, and chemicals. As a photograph, this Apollo exists in an expanded field of production, making the image widely available, and reproducible in a way that the sculpture itself never could be. This allows us to consider the photograph as a kind of readymade, similar to Duchamp’s appropriations, democratizing the mythic Apollo through the very modern medium of photography. It asks us to challenge traditional distinctions between fine art and craft and to recognize the importance of materials, making, and context in understanding the full meaning of an artwork.