Untitled 1979

Curator: This is an untitled photograph by Catherine Wagner, currently held at the Harvard Art Museums. It presents what seems to be a storage yard filled with rolls and stacks of chain-link fencing. Editor: My immediate reaction is one of starkness. The black and white tones and the geometric repetition create a sense of cold industrial order. Curator: Exactly! Wagner often explores systems, here perhaps the commodification and control implied by the fences. The very lack of a title invites open interpretation. Editor: It feels like a commentary on boundaries, both physical and conceptual. Who is being kept in, or out? Whose land is being demarcated? Curator: Indeed. The photograph prompts one to contemplate the social and political implications of division and access. Editor: It's unsettling, yet the composition holds a strange beauty—a testament to finding art in the everyday, even the disquieting. Curator: The way Wagner frames this industrial landscape turns something mundane into a quiet, thought-provoking statement.