Bar 1942

Leon Goldin made this print, ‘Bar’, in 1942, and you can see how he’s really working the plate. It's a black and white scene, not totally clear, but it makes me think about the process of art-making itself. The whole image is a constellation of marks. Look at the guy on the right, reading a newspaper, there's a looseness to the way he renders the newspaper and the crutches. The way Goldin allows areas to be more or less legible allows for a layered reading. The build-up of marks in the background makes the space feel smoky and compressed. It reminds me of the prints of Josef Albers, though much more figurative. In the end, the print feels like a collection of multiple moments in time, rather than a single snapshot. And that makes me wonder, can art ever be pinned down to one, clear meaning?