Self-deceit #1, Rome 1978

Francesca Woodman made this photograph, Self-deceit #1, Rome, using black and white film. The light is soft, almost blurring the edges of things, making it hard to tell where one thing begins and another ends. This feels like a photo about process, about trying to capture something that’s always shifting. There's a figure, maybe Woodman herself, caught between a grimy wall and a broken mirror. It’s a scrappy set-up, and you can almost feel the grit under your fingernails. The mirror is so interesting, it throws back a version of the body but broken, like an echo or a fragmented thought. Look at how the figure's hand almost melts into the surface of the mirror. The lines blur, and the reflection doubles and distorts. This kind of doubling reminds me of Gerhard Richter, who also worked with doubling in his paintings to explore how images are always already copies, never quite real. Ultimately, Woodman's work, like Richter's, invites us to see the world as a place of ambiguity and uncertainty, where meaning is never fixed, but always in flux.