Water Structure 1975

Jan Dibbets made this ‘Water Structure’ using photography. I’m not sure when it was made, but there is something about the seriality of the composition, with its repeated blocks of colour, that feels very rooted in a process. The materiality of the piece is interesting. From a distance, that band of colour looks almost like a strip of watercolour, but up close you can tell its made up of many individual photographs, each one slightly different, and together creating an index of the surface of water. I guess I’m reminded of Ed Ruscha, another artist who is interested in seriality, and the absurdism that comes from the act of repetition. There is something really quite funny about someone going to so much effort to photograph water. Art is an ongoing conversation. It is open to interpretation, and there are no correct answers.