Zuma #12 1977

John Divola made this photograph, Zuma #12, at some point in his career. It's almost entirely about the tension between inside and outside, and what the space *in between* looks and feels like. The ocean and the sky, they're almost dreamlike, but they're viewed through broken windows, with red paint jaggedly applied. It’s like graffiti, but it’s also sort of decorative. Is this vandalism, or some kind of twisted interior design? I keep coming back to the windows. The gaps, the absences. The red paint seems to want to fill them, but it can't. It's like the photograph itself is trying to mend something that's been broken, or maybe it's just highlighting the break. Think of Gordon Matta-Clark, but instead of cutting buildings, Divola is painting absences, or photographing them, which is almost the same thing. It embraces the ambiguity, which for me is the most exciting part.