Michael Snow, Still Living, 4 Acts Scene 1, 1982

Dye-transfer in color (from Polaroid)
10 1/2 x 10 1/4 inches
Edition of 75

Ships unframed

"One of the possibilities of photography is a meaningful control of the size of the final print, and I've worked with that aspect a great deal. For example, Still Living 9 x 4 Acts, Scene 1 is a micro-structure, recessional, molecular to atomic, intimate, private. There are nine white pages each having four small dye-transfer photo images on it. A complex dialogue between all the thirty-two 'acts' of the series is set-up, but on each page the four images, since they are grouped together, are seen as the four parts of a One. The viewer must approach to differentiate. Since the pictures are very small, one must peer into them, and they are then seen to be each unified little compositions with many tiny details within details. The mode is the still-life tradition of arrangements of objects, but these images contain many objects, events and allegorical implications never before brought together on the same stage. Indeed, all the different still-life occurrences happen in the same place - the equivalent of a stage set which is why there are theatre references in the title: Scene 1, 9 x 4 Acts."

- Michael Snow