'Lost and Found' at Crate
A picture tells a thousand words… So I won’t try to describe all of them. Actually I find it hard to find any words at all to describe these photographs. I am amongst those who become tongue-tied when I stand in front of art and find it hard to say anything more insightful than ‘hmmm I like that one’, and then rest my hand on my hip and tilt my head to the side and repeat ‘yes I do like that one’. It’s not that they don’t move or engage me; it is just that I cannot distill their quality onto paper. Perhaps more than good writing, good photography demands a single moment of concentration. It must capture something fleeting and yet none of the photographs on display were stagnant. Lost and Found captures the temporality of the things; everything you see and touch must change.
You go to the titles; reliant on the words to confirm your interpretation and make sure that the brick door you are looking at really is indeed a ‘door’. And if you are really lucky the description that partners the image might give that elusive intelligent comment to make to your neighbour: ‘the action of the world on things’, which I overheard the artist claim to be his favourite, is a rather more profound title than ‘mouse’ (but I hadn’t noticed the mouse until I read its name), suggesting associations.
The photographs had been taken with an old camera and they had that lovely muted colour and strangeness and nostalgia that digital can never achieve. They were quiet and empty of people; abandoned maybe?
Whether something is lost or found is just a matter of perspective. I wandered around the tiny Crate gallery space, lost in trying to find meanings in the pictures. I felt a little confused, but maybe I am supposed to. The search for understanding is how you connect with art; a conversation between me and what I see. And then like Hansel and Gretel with their little white pebbles I was able to find myself by following the white footsteps I had left in the wet paint on the floor. If I framed a photo of my footprint, could I join him on the wall?