photo | Maxim Ksuta

May 13, 2025

The Modesty of Form as a Challenge to Dominant Taste

The Modesty of Form as a Challenge to Dominant Taste
By Pierre Bourdieu

At first glance, this photograph may seem banal: a plant pushing through the asphalt by a building wall, two windows cut off by the frame, the smooth texture of the plaster. But, as is often the case within the fields of cultural production, banality itself becomes a form of resistance.

We must ask the central question: why does such an image deserve aesthetic recognition? Who has the authority to assign meaning to something so “insignificant”? This is not merely a photograph of a plant — it is a manifesto of taste, rejecting the preferences of the dominant classes, for whom “beauty” consists of Tuscan landscapes, nude bodies, or architecture worthy of Architectural Digest.

This image refuses to participate in the spectacle. It presents what has been neutralized by everyday life, what lacks recognized status. And in doing so, it performs a gesture — a gesture of reflexive aesthetics, an aesthetics that is distanced, almost ascetic. It positions itself within the space of “high culture,” but does so by inverting its codes — by showing the insignificant, by focusing on details the elite are trained to ignore.

Look at the two window frames, mirrored in their distance from the center but offset toward the top. Their symmetry is asymmetrical. This is the very structure of social space: it appears logical, but in reality, it is a field of struggle. Just like here — aesthetic symmetry is disrupted, as the balance between cultural capital and access to it is always unequal.

But there is a more subtle point. The plant pushing through the crack is a metaphor for habitus, the embodied carrier of structure. It does not grow just anywhere, but where conditions permit. It does not choose freedom — it acts within the realm of the possible. And yet it exists. Its form is the form of forced adaptation.

Perhaps the photographer did not intend this kind of social deconstruction, but in the field of art, intention is not always key. What matters is the work’s position within the structure of the field. And here, in this photograph, I see a work that rejects ornamentation, refuses to display technique, and instead elevates the ordinary to the level of the worthy.

It is precisely this kind of photograph that challenges not only academic taste but the entire system of its production and legitimation.

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February 19, 2025

The Photographic Poetics of Fragmentation

Essay by Clive Scott:

“The Photographic Poetics of Fragmentation”

This photograph operates not only through its imagery but through perception itself, compelling us to see through its language—a language of disjointedness, fragmentation, and texture. A distinct approach to framing is at work here: rather than offering the viewer a complete picture, it invites us to see the world as a collection of visual elements, each carrying an underlying tension.

In the foreground, a tangle of branches forms a natural chaos, partially obscuring the scene and leaving it on the verge of revelation. Beyond this layer, a differently structured space emerges: the strict verticals of trees stand like columns, supporting the rhythm of the composition. Their trunks are wrapped in red protective coverings—a striking visual accent that disrupts the monochromatic harmony of the winter forest. The red here is a gesture, a statement—perhaps one of protection, yet it may also be read as a sign of intrusion, alteration, or violence.

The photograph explores the boundary between the visible and the hidden. What lies beyond these trees? What role does this scene play in the space of the real world? The presence of a grid on the snow and a wooden pavilion suggests a place of human intervention—but in what context? We do not know, and the image offers no answers, only deepening our engagement in the act of interpretation.

Here, photography reveals its essence as a fragmentary art form: it extracts a piece of reality but does not enclose it within itself. Instead, it offers it as the starting point for an infinite narrative. This work exists not only in its visual plane but also in the viewer’s consciousness, where, following the pathways of its composition, one fills in the gaps with personal assumptions and sensations.

This is not just an image—it is an act of visual thinking. It speaks in the language of signs, suggestions, and omissions, and therein lies its poetic power.

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February 19, 2025

Photography as a Witness to Time and Space (in the Spirit of John Szarkowski)

Photography as a Witness to Time and Space (in the Spirit of John Szarkowski)

Photography has always been not just a means of capturing reality but also a way of revealing the invisible structures within the ordinary. This image is proof of that. At first glance, we see nothing more than an abandoned rural outhouse, leaning and engulfed by the green chaos of vegetation. Yet the photographer’s gaze transforms it into something more: a symbol, a story, a testament to time.

I have always believed that one of photography’s most essential functions is not merely to document but to interpret. Here, composition plays with the tension between the man-made object and the nature reclaiming it. The vertical lines of the trees engage in a dialogue with the slanted geometry of the wooden structure, creating a sense of movement—as if nature is gradually reclaiming what was once part of human daily life.

This object, once serving a utilitarian purpose, has now been discarded beyond the boundaries of the homestead, standing at the threshold between civilization and wilderness. There is a strange poetry in this: an object that was once an essential part of everyday life has become obsolete, stripped of its function, awaiting its final dissolution into the surrounding landscape.

Photography captures the moment of this transformation, simultaneously reminding us of the impermanence of all things and their inevitable return to primordial chaos. This image brings to mind the works of William Eggleston and his ability to uncover beauty and meaning in the most unexpected, even banal, subjects. In the end, a great photograph does not merely show—it allows us to see.

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February 8, 2025

An Essay from the Perspective of Alain Badiou

Essay by Alain Badiou: “Form, Event, Truth”

This photograph does not ask us what we see but rather how seeing itself is structured. Here, at the center of an open landscape, stands an empty frame—devoid of its own content, yet transformed into a site for truth. It is not merely a frame but an event, one that organizes space and compels us to question its naturalness.

In the tradition of Platonic philosophy, truth is never given to us directly—it requires construction, mediation. This frame is a structure that marks an absence, yet through this very absence, it reveals the process of distinction itself: what is inside, and what is outside? Does the field within the frame differ from what surrounds it? No, and yet we begin to see it differently.

This is how an event is born—a sudden rupture in the order of the visible. We find ourselves in a situation where the artificial creates the conditions for a new perception of the real. The field, which has always been a field, is now transformed into a sign. The boundary between landscape and its representation becomes unstable, and we find ourselves inside this duality, unable to determine where exactly the line between art and the world is drawn.

What matters here is not only what is depicted but also the very act of framing. This is not a gesture of authority, not an ordering of chaos, but rather a challenge—an invitation for the viewer to recognize that all vision is a choice, that truth is never given to us directly but always emerges through rupture, through an event that reorganizes our structures of perception.

In this sense, photography does not merely document reality; it plays with it, revealing what would otherwise remain unnoticed in everyday life. It becomes an act of thought and, therefore, a space for truth.

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February 6, 2025

An Essay from the Perspective of Thomas Veski

Essay by Thomas Veski:

“Suspended Moment”

This photograph possesses a rare ability to hold the viewer in an in-between state. There is no obvious movement, no human presence, yet this very absence fills the image with potentiality. We stand before tram tracks, before concrete slabs that, covered in fine cracks and stains, resemble traces of time. This frame captures something beyond a mere street or a tram stop—it becomes a metaphor for waiting, for transition from one state to another.

The division of space plays a crucial role here. The foreground is sharply defined, with detailed textures of asphalt and metal, while the background dissolves into a diffuse haze. The glass of the tram stop acts as a boundary between a world of clarity and a world of blurred contours. The trees behind this glass no longer belong to reality in the usual sense. They become shadows, memories, hints of something alive yet unreachable.

This technique echoes aesthetic principles found in documentary photography, where a simple scene reveals itself as something greater than the sum of its parts. We do not see people, yet their absence only amplifies the feeling of their possible arrival. We wait for them, just as we wait for the approaching tram that remains beyond the frame.

The use of perspective is also significant. The tracks lead our gaze deeper into the image, yet they provide no clear destination. They stop at the edge of the frame, leaving us suspended. Like the photograph itself, we remain on the threshold of something elusive.

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January 26, 2025

Essay from the Perspective of Georges Bataille

Essay from the Perspective of Georges Bataille: “Foam as the Language of Chance”

In this image, foam takes center stage—a language of chaos spread across the dark surface of asphalt. Its presence raises questions: where did it come from? What caused its flow? Foam is something fleeting, ephemeral, yet here it finds a way to make itself known, leaving traces that speak of the interplay between nature and human action.

It resembles clouds that have descended to the earth to spill across the material foundation of our world. Each line and stain it creates is the result of a random flow, beyond our control. In this, it reveals the truth of chance—the same truth that governs our thoughts, desires, and fears. Foam lives a brief but intense life cycle, seeping into every crack, every crevice, as though filling the voids we prefer to ignore.

The parked cars stand as symbols of our pursuit of control, order, a fixed system. They are like boundaries that the foam seeks to disrupt, penetrating their shadows, merging the material with the ephemeral. The wet, porous asphalt becomes a canvas for this force, where foam is not merely a substance but a gesture, an action that blurs rigid borders.

The shadows of cars and the corners of buildings also play their roles. They absorb the foam, interact with its shapes, creating an illusion of depth and layers. This reminds us how often our perception of reality is shaped by the intersection of the material and the immaterial. In this interplay of light and form, there is something almost sacred, as in every process of decay or creation.

Foam symbolizes the uncontrollable, the unstructured. It seeks to expose the absurdity of our efforts to impose order on chaos. This image speaks to the transience and the perpetual struggle between structure and anarchy. Foam is the trace of an action that leaves behind no meaning, yet in this absence, it reminds us of our own vulnerability to the forces of time and oblivion.

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January 24, 2025

An Essay from the Perspective of Vilém Flusser

An Essay from the Perspective of Vilém Flusser

The photograph presented to me is a challenge to the dialogical nature of the image and the objecthood of the surrounding world. This shot is not merely the result of the photographer’s gesture but also a testament to the relationship between human and apparatus, between creator and tool.

Here, in this image, the pipe, wall, and plant cease to be “real” things. They become elements of a conceptual universe, visual symbols that “point” to meaning rather than contain it. The camera is not simply a device that records reality but an interface capable of transforming objects into concepts.

The image of the pipe, slightly tilted and marked with a graphic symbol, is a metaphor for functionality turned into cultural text. The act of someone drawing on the pipe is an example of the “play” humans engage in with objects of the industrial world. The graffiti transforms the pipe into a bearer of meaning, a medium of communication. Meanwhile, the plant growing against the backdrop of the brick wall challenges this very industry, presenting a contrast between the organic and the artificial, the living and the static.

The brick wall, even and orderly, symbolizes human-created structure, yet its cracks reveal the chaotic force of nature, whose power cannot be entirely subdued. This tension between the authentic, the natural, and the industrial introduces us to a new world, where the familiar desire for control is dismantled by its own logic.

What is significant here, however, is the act of photographing itself. The photographer is a “programmer” working with the “memory” of the apparatus. The choice of angle, framing, and the relationships between objects is a process that extracts the image from the flow of randomness and imbues it with meaning. The apparatus, despite its cold functionality, becomes a tool for cultural expression, and the photographer, interacting with it, does not merely record but creates.

This work reveals the essence of photography as communication. It speaks not only about the objects within the frame but also about the gaze that perceived them, the person behind the camera, and us, the viewers of this photograph. We become part of this visual dialogue, transforming from passive spectators into interpreters.

This photograph is not simply an object; it is a text we read. And therein lies its true value.

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January 23, 2025

An essay written as if by Roland Barthes

“The Death of the Author, the Birth of the Sign”

An essay written as if by Roland Barthes

This photograph is not merely an image but a text I read in my imagination. It unfolds before me as a field of signs, endlessly layered, each calling me to interpret, deconstruct, and immerse myself in its ambiguity. The image becomes a space of meanings, where the author vanishes, leaving us alone with the object—a sign that demands to be read.

At the center of the composition, we see a sign with the inscription: “Do not block the passage to the boiler room.” At first glance, it is a simple utilitarian directive, a warning, a relic of the industrial age. But its placement, its wear, and its interaction with nature create a unique semiotic tension. This object is no longer functional in its literal sense. It has become a symbol of the past, which, through oblivion, transforms into poetry.

The rust on the sign speaks of time—of its destructive and, paradoxically, creative power. This is not merely loss but a new level of presence. The metal, corroded by decay, tells a story that, as a viewer, I can only imagine. The aesthetics of desolation turn into an invitation to reflect: what was this passage, to whom or to what did it lead?

The cracked wall is texture, a palimpsest, hiding countless past layers beneath it. It does not remain silent; on the contrary, it whispers of time, the passing of eras, of human labor and its traces. The wild grape leaves creeping along the wall challenge time itself. Nature asserts its dominion, softening the ruins with its organic persistence.

And yet, despite this wealth of meaning, the photograph resists a definitive interpretation. It remains open, like a sign that perpetually eludes a final reading. This is where its power lies. The photographer retreats into the shadows, allowing the objects to speak. I see only what already exists: the sign, the wall, the leaves. But these elements transform within the space of the photograph, becoming independent of their original purpose.

The photograph becomes a space where culture and nature, time and its decay, memory and its loss converge. It evokes in me, the viewer, a desire to immerse myself in its signs, returning again and again to read them differently. The “death of the author” here becomes the birth of new meaning.

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January 22, 2025

An essay composed as if by Walter Benjamin

“Fragments of Memory and the Ruins of Time”

An essay composed as if by Walter Benjamin

This photograph, in its deceptive simplicity, speaks of something greater than just an image of a wall, trees, and snow. It is a testimony to time—time that simultaneously disintegrates and restores itself. Here, we see an imprint of being, frozen in a moment yet unable to conceal the traces of its own history.

The wall is a text that we read. Its colors, cracked surface, and white patches—all are fragments of what once was whole. Now, it exists as a ruin, as evidence of loss that nevertheless remains imbued with meaning. It is the lost aura of a place that the photograph seeks to capture, transforming it into something new, into an artifact.

The trees—bare, fragile, yet persistently reaching upward—become symbols of resistance. They stand in opposition to the lifeless cold of the snow and the artificiality of the wall. They are nature, refusing to retreat despite all constraints. These branches, with their few remaining orange leaves, serve as a reminder that even amid decay and disconnection, life endures.

The snow below is a temporary veil. It conceals the ground, but not entirely. It is a reminder of the cyclical nature of time—that everything changes but always returns. The snow will turn to water, the water will seep into the earth, and everything will begin anew.

But what does the photograph do with this image? It halts motion, transforming fragments into textures, into symbols. Hidden within this act of freezing time is a unique tension. As viewers, we sense that what we face is more than mere documentary evidence. It is an image that carries within it a dialectic: between past and present, between nature and artificiality, between the passage of time and the persistence of memory.

Photography is a form of “mediated experience,” as I have discussed before. It detaches us from the direct perception of a place, replacing it with a “copy.” Yet in this detachment lies the potential for reflection. Before us is not merely a wall, nor simply trees or snow. What lies before us is their meaning. We see this as testimony to a historical process that is interrupted but not complete.

Finally, this work poses a question: What is aura in an age when everything can be reproduced? Perhaps its aura lies in the uniqueness of this very moment, this particular combination of forms and textures. We view it not as a part of a larger context but as a completed whole. And in this way, photography—despite its reproductive nature—becomes art.

This photograph is an archive, but not in the traditional sense. It is not a repository of facts. It is a repository of emotions, history, and struggle. It reminds us of time we have lost, yet which continues to exist in remnants and fragments. Perhaps its greatest power lies in compelling us to reflect on our own position in time—on how we relate to this world of fragments and ruins.

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