Militaire begrafenis 1940 - 1943

This collection of photographs, “Militaire begrafenis”, by an anonymous photographer, are mounted in an album page. The images are small, a bit rough around the edges, each a glimpse into a military funeral, or perhaps several. The tones are muted; grey, black and white blending with the darker album page, there's an acceptance of the unrefined, the kind of material handling that allows the image to speak directly, without fuss. Look at the crosses in the final image, row upon row of white crosses marking graves. The repetition is so striking, an attempt to bring order and meaning to something so chaotic and senseless as warfare. I think of Gerhard Richter’s grey paintings, their blurred surfaces both concealing and revealing, or the work of someone like Agnes Martin. These images, like so much powerful art, sit in the space between what we know and what we can never truly understand. It's a reminder that art often thrives in the realm of ambiguity.