Koppelelement bij een electriciteitsmast op onbekende locatie in de Verenigde Staten 1936

This photograph, by Wouter Cool, shows part of an electricity pylon somewhere in the US. The photo is a study in contrasts. Cool finds a surprising beauty in what is essentially an industrial object, a connection between power and place. It's a monochrome image, and though the contrasts are stark, there are also many subtle tonal variations. The structure is captured with a sharp focus; the criss-cross of metal bars, wires and insulators depicted with almost clinical precision. Yet the image is not without feeling. The height of the pylon, the way it seems to reach up into the sky, fills me with a sense of awe, a kind of existential vertigo. I’m reminded of Bernd and Hilla Becher, who also photographed industrial structures with an objective eye. But Cool, I think, is doing something different here. The human element is missing, but that very absence speaks volumes, the pylon standing in testament to human ingenuity. And if art is a conversation across time, then Cool’s photograph is a whisper that still resonates today.