Barcelona 1932

Dora Maar made this photograph, Barcelona, with a camera, of course, and a dark room where the image slowly came into focus. Looking at this building front, I notice how the greyscale shades shape the feeling here - it is as if there were many textures, but the photo flattens everything into a muted tonality. It reminds me of how, in painting, the process of layering can create surprising effects; here, the layers of posters, the architectural embellishments, and the way the light catches the peeling plaster. But then there is the mannequin; that blank, smooth form, disrupting all the other textures of the building. It's got this eerie quietness, a surreal jolt in an otherwise real scene. Maybe it’s like a painting by Giorgio de Chirico, that uncanny stillness and how he also finds this kind of quietness in the everyday. Like any great artwork, Maar embraces ambiguity, inviting us to ponder the unexpected juxtapositions that make our world so endlessly fascinating.