Thee- en kinaonderneming Pasir-Malang 1936

This photograph of Thee- en kinaonderneming Pasir-Malang was made by an anonymous artist with gelatin silver print. It’s a building, but it’s a building rendered with care and attention. It’s interesting to consider how this anonymous maker chose to represent it. There is an insistence here, in the tones and textures of the image, on flatness. The facade is frontal and relatively evenly lit. The tonal range moves gently from light to dark, and back again. Look at the windows. They are like simple vertical brushstrokes. The whole building is reduced to a series of marks and tones. It’s all planes and surface. It feels almost like a painting. It makes me think of Bernd and Hilla Becher and their photographic typologies. Perhaps this is not just a documentary image, but a work of art interested in shape, form and the aesthetics of the built environment. We will never know, and I love that.