Chefs cultuurafdeeling 1931 - 1934

Atelier Kurkdjian created this silver gelatin print, "Chefs cultuurafdeeling." The composition here is a real balancing act. The image is made up of layers of rectangles and lines that recede into the distance. You see it in the windows, the desks, even the ceiling, but then those forms are broken up by the curves of the lamps and the almost cartoonish ceiling fans. The eye gets pushed back and forth. The texture is interesting, too, like a dance between sharp focus and blur. I keep coming back to those figures at the desks. They're there, but also kind of fading, melting into the background. It reminds me of some of Gerhard Richter’s blurred paintings and the way he was thinking about history, memory, and photography. It's not about one fixed point of view, but about how we see, remember, and make sense of things over time.