Baboons, Arnhem, Netherlands 1989

Volker Seding made this photograph, Baboons, Arnhem, Netherlands with a camera, and the image is small, only about 6 x 8 inches. I find myself thinking about how the baboons relate to their landscape, the built environment that seems to mimic a geological rockface. A trickle of water stains the surface. But it’s not real! How can the baboons tell? In the photo, the colours are all earth tones – browns, tans, greys, and even the baboons blend in. But I notice the baboons are positioned on the tree’s ‘branches’ as if they are part of nature, but the tree is also ‘fake’. So Seding sets up a puzzle about what is real and what is not. This picture reminds me that all artworks are fabricated! They only refer to the real, so in that sense, Sedings’s baboons are not so different from my paintings!