Gabriele F. Gotz 1982

John Gossage made this photograph, Gabriele F. Gotz. I'm really drawn to the way he coaxes so much from black and white photography. It's like he's saying, "Look, I don't need all the colors in the world to capture something real." It's a close-up, almost intimate portrait, and it's not just about what she looks like, but how she feels, maybe even how we feel looking at her. The texture of her sweater, the way her hair catches the light, it's all so tangible. There's a strand of hair dancing across her face, a tiny detail, but it brings the whole image to life. This reminds me of some of those quiet, introspective portraits by Lucian Freud, though, of course, Freud was a painter. But it's the same kind of searching, the same sense of trying to capture something essential about the person. Art's all about that conversation, right?