Dimensions: image/sheet: 16 × 20 cm (6 5/16 × 7 7/8 in.) mount: 20.32 × 25.4 cm (8 × 10 in.)
Copyright: National Gallery of Art: CC0 1.0
Volker Seding created this photograph, *Black Rhinoceros, Brookfield Zoo, Chicago*, sometime in the twentieth century, using photography to capture the surprising scene. The composition immediately creates a sense of compression and artifice. Seding’s picture frames a rhino in what appears to be its enclosure against a backdrop of painted scenery. I can't help but think about the layers of representation at play here. The rhino is real but placed in an unreal setting, the painted landscape. It’s as if the beast is posing, or has been placed there in front of an idyllic mural. My eye keeps returning to the scumbled grays and browns of the Rhino itself, and the way it mirrors the palette of the landscape. The rhinoceros becomes another element in the composition of the scene, another part of a stage set. Looking at this photograph I am reminded of the work of Thomas Struth, who photographs museum visitors in relation to works of art. It’s about seeing, and the spaces we construct for looking.
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