Boulder Dam, Arizona/Nevada, Verenigde Staten 1936

Wouter Cool made this gelatin silver print of the Boulder Dam in Arizona and Nevada sometime in the first half of the 20th century. The photograph itself is black and white, but it’s mounted on what seems to be a cream or buff colored piece of card, with a very basic line drawing on the left hand side. There’s an incredible level of detail in the photograph, and the contrast between the rough, almost geological texture of the dam itself, and the man-made structures around it, is really beautiful. The eye is drawn up the dam wall itself, with a very clever, almost imperceptible upwards angle. The line drawing is like a key, or a formal echo of the photograph, so both sides of the piece feel connected, formally and conceptually. This work reminds me of the paintings of Agnes Martin, not in terms of its subject, but in the way that it draws attention to the deceptively simple ways that we perceive space. There’s a lot going on here, without anything really happening at all.