otrops elsewhere

What I’m most interested in is the invisible space between a text and its accompanying image. And how the image is transformed by the text and the text by the image. So at best, the image is meant to float away into abstraction and multiple truths and fantasy. And then the text functions as this cruel anchor that nails it to the ground.

Taryn Simon photographs secret sites, and here talks about the relationship between here photographs and the texts that accompany them.

I’ve always been fascinated and often angered by interpretive labels in art museums. They have the strange power to utterly change my understanding of a work of art. Before I read the label, I’ve started telling myself a story of why the work was created and what it means. Often, that story is at odds with what is on the label. As a result, the story quickly recedes into the distance and is completely forgotten. In most cases, I prefer my story to the “reality” represented by the label.

Maybe I should start writing my own labels. Maybe we all should.