Black Object White Chair 2016

Elina Brotherus made this photograph, “Black Object White Chair.” It's a curious thing, this image: a body in a garbage bag, and its relationship to a chair. The bag sort of echoes the shape of a person, but it's also shiny, black, and totally obscuring. I wonder what it was like to wriggle into it? I mean the artist, not me. This is a photograph about being inside of something. Not just any something but a garbage bag. There’s also something very formal about it. The whiteness of the chair, the blackness of the bag. A study in contrasts. But also, the texture of the wall and the floor. What must it have felt like to be there in that room? What might she have been thinking when she made it? It reminds me of other artists who use their bodies as a kind of sculpture, like Hannah Wilke, and so many more. Artists are always in conversation with each other. What does it mean to be an object? What does it mean to be a person? And what happens when those two things get mixed up? I find this photo asking many questions and not giving easy answers.