Artistic statement

Black-and-white photography differs from colour photography in much the same way that drawing differs from painting: if I am unable to perceive the contours of objects through the movement of a pencil, I can reduce my presence to the pressing of a button. Still, there is no relief to be found here: the clicking of a keyboard (we have all long since forgotten how to write on paper) erodes the boundary between what is said and what is shown, leaving only the awareness of another person’s face, in which someone might constantly be recognised. I speak-show, I show-speak; speech is impaired by the fact that it cannot be played backwards, nor can one count how many pages remain until the end of the chapter. Notes in the margins cannot be automatic, but that is where one ought to begin. A word-gesture, a photographic gesture, a hieroglyphic stroke searching for a place where meaning might settle.

A letter is always addressed to someone, whereas a photograph still has to discover its addressee. The problem is that all objects really do possess contours of some kind, contours that have to be anticipated at the very moment when the glaze is applied. It is known that, eventually, a person will appear here: they have two eyes (for reading) and are immersed in a very strange network of distracting historical circumstances that could just as well serve as the photograph’s caption.

But what am I supposed to do if I do not actually know who all these people are?…