MoMA Guard Before A Starry Night, 2007

MoMA Guard Before A Starry Night, 2007
Light box enlargement

Or, how to take a picture of a famous painting and the people around it and show neither.

The security standing beside Van Gogh’s “A Starry Night” was tight-lipped, solemn, imposing while attempting to remain as anonymous and impassive as possible, surrounded by people who are intended to be aware of his presence but at the same time assuming obliviousness.

Here he rises on his toes, briefly relieving the monotony and the stress of his pose, and takes on an almost otherworldly presence, the guardian becoming the angel of “A Starry Night”, close to unhinging from the earth and rising.