Untitled (carload of Frigidaires for Vogel Furniture company) 1950

Curator: This is an untitled photograph by Harry Annas, depicting a train car filled with Frigidaires for the O.W. Vogel Furniture Company. Editor: My first thought? It feels like a forgotten dream, slightly surreal with its stark contrasts and the almost ghostly figures. Is this pure commercialism or something more? Curator: Interesting that you say “forgotten dream,” I see it as a document of material ambition, but the high contrast and the banner proclaiming "Another Solid Carload" lend a slightly absurd quality, don't you think? Editor: Absolutely, that banner! It’s almost mocking in its repetition. Frigidaires, then and now, symbolizing a kind of frozen promise, a keeping of the cold that perhaps is not what we really need to feel at home. It asks what exactly we are accumulating. Curator: The image certainly hints at the cyclical nature of consumerism. A bit melancholy if you ask me, but with a touch of dark humor. Editor: Yes, a dark humor that perhaps reveals more about our own obsessions than it does about Frigidaires.