Marcherende militairen 1941 - 1945

This small photograph, ‘Marching Soldiers’, resides in the Rijksmuseum and was made by an anonymous photographer. The palette here is really restricted. It’s a world of grays, which makes it all the more compelling. Look at the way the soldiers are captured in a very specific moment, a kind of stilled gesture, like a paused filmstrip. Their rigid pose emphasizes the idea of military precision. Yet, what's so cool is the way the photograph is composed. The grainy texture suggests the limitations of photography but also the endless play of light and shadow which suggests the possibilities for making something new through a process. It makes me think of a Gerhard Richter painting, where he recreates a photograph with paint, blurring the image in order to emphasize the process of seeing, the limitations of memory, and the ambiguity of visual experience. This photographer, and Richter after them, creates a space where representation is not about a fixed or stable meaning, but about an ongoing process of questioning and interpretation.