Ralph Gibson’s Untitled (From Political Abstraction) is a diptych—two photographs combined to make up a singular work of art. The vibrant right panel draws a contrast between light reflecting off of green leaves and black shadows created by the crevasses between each leaf. The monochromatic left panel features backward text that reads “EXIT ONLY,” as if it were a mirror image. This artwork exemplifies Gibson’s subtractive notion of photography, whereby he reduces familiar scenes through a focus on scale, color, and dimension. This reductive process embodies the abstraction evoked by the artwork’s title. In the left panel, an exit sign is pared down to black and white and presented as a reflection. The agave plant in the right panel is more easily recognizable with its color preserved, yet the image’s close cropping makes the familiar strange. Gibson creates further contrasts by juxtaposing the human-made text and the desert plant. The juxtaposition of machine-made and natural invites us to consider the relationship between the two sides—what do they have in common, and how do they interact?

— Ethan Silva, VU student