Saturday, March 21, 2015

Wasted Beauty


Two images.

The first, a photograph in black and white that captured a situation in a fraction of a second.
The other, a painting, full of vivid colours depicting a rather static scene.



Different media, different formal qualities and yet so relevant, as if they were meant to be placed one next to the other.

Two young girls working in public spaces, serving crowds that hardly notice their existence. It seems as if they were visible only to the eyes of the artists, Robert Frank and Edward Hopper.

The look of the elevator girl and the body posture of the cinema girl radiate the boredom and the frustration caused by their repetitive, uninteresting jobs.

Jack Kerouac, who wrote the foreword of the legendary book The Americans where the photograph belongs, asked Frank if hew new the girl's telephone number. I am sure he wouldn't mind dating the blonde from the painting either.

Luckily we have Art to preserve some humanity in this mechanical world.

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