Bombay, 2008, between Fountain and Churchgate Possibly 2008 - 2014

Leo Rubinfien's photograph, "Bombay, 2008, between Fountain and Churchgate," captures a line of men, their faces etched with stories only hinted at in monochrome. Rubinfien uses light and shadow as his brush, smudging the background into an indistinguishable mass. The man in the foreground wears dark glasses, but he still stares directly at us. His eyes obscured, he’s somehow more present, more challenging. The focus is so sharp, you can see every line, every pore. The composition is simple, almost brutal. It’s like a Gerhard Richter painting, where the blur is not a mistake, but an opening. What do you see in their faces? What stories do you imagine? And how do these imagined stories reflect back on your own way of seeing? That's what Rubinfien asks us to consider here.