Originally published:  March 29, 2005

Note: This is not a photo that I took – it is a web image from the resource (collection) on Gehard Richter’s Paintings, Watercolors and
Multiples for which proper credit maybe found and attributed here:
www.sammlung-frieder-burda.de/index_e.html

My comments…..the orb is particular in capturing the moment (trace?) in this picture of the art piece. The reflection in the all seeing – the instant of recording – context, photographer and apparatus.  The picture preserves a trace of the subject/viewer relationship that in “reality” is always shifting and requires that  you be present in the now to participate…

I love how the photo provides another space for interpretation of the piece.

The photograph provides a separation distance between you and the orb – more precisely, the presence of an image in your likeness which can only occur obviously given the situation “in real time” between you and the orb…    You see your likeness in the mirror… Here through the photograph – the separation distance is quite apparent as it offers a glimpse of the relationship to the moment when a photograph was taken….

Gerhard Richter
Kugel
1989
Diameter: 8 cm
Ball of high-grade steel
signed, dated and numbered by engraving “A.P. 5/5 Richter 1989”

UPDATE

What does this have to do with “modern photography”?  …  The work by Matthew Jordan comes to mind…

Untitled 2008, Matthew Jordan – From his series “half empty“… more here….