Walead Beshty

I’ve just done a review for Source–very short–of a catalogue of Beshty’s work called Natural Histories, a collaboration between a museum in Malmo, Sweden, and another in Madrid.  I didn’t have enough space to give examples, or do any kind of speculation, and I regretted that.  It seems like work to “talk” to, rather than to review.  I can imagine a situation in which one person talks or writes and another is making things, and they go back and forth, egg each other on.  Anyway this work seemed like a gentle and respectful dissenting voice–against most of what most of us accept about photography most of the time.  In fact it seemed to “frame” that belief rather well: he’s troubled by our willingness to accept photography as an abstraction; he wants to show it to us again,  as something very concrete, meaningful in a specific context.  It’s clear, honest, and salutary.  And sometimes visually “eloquent” as well.