Longing for Simplicity

In the series "Absence", the photographer wrestles with the history of photography. He sees something within the familiar photographss of prominent photographers throughout history—and takes it away. He strips it away and erases it. We see the Picture, yet it feels strange to our eyes. This act of taking, stripping, and erasing makes the familiar photograph unfamiliar. We know we have seen the picture before, but not like this. This act of taking and erasing reaches a strange peak in two photographs: "Before Callahan" and "Before Avedon." In one, the entire upper half of Eleanor (the photographer’s wife) is taken away; in the other, the entire upper half of, presumably, a beekeeper man is removed (I say presumably because Avedon’s photograph could be any other photograph of him). Both pictures are completely emptied of their referential identity. Nothing remains except the white surface of the photo paper and a black border—that is the negative’s edge on the photo. The black border frames the emptiness in both photos. Both photographs seem like twins—like Arbus’s twins. But no, they are not the same. The black borders differ slightly. The difference seems only in the photograph material itself; a material stripped of materiality. The difference lies in the absent half of the picture, in the other half, in the photograph’s negative, and in its darkness. Reducing the act of photography to this white and black emptiness brings photography closer to language within this great void.

But I do not know for what purpose these acts of taking and erasing have ultimately happened.