About this artwork
Aaron Siskind, who became known for images of walls reminiscent of Abstract Expressionist paintings, also discovered abstraction on the beaches of Chicago. Between 1953 and 1956, he photographed divers at Chicago’s Oak Street Beach. Silhouetted against the sky, the precariously balanced figures look like hieroglyphs and recall the linguistic forms Siskind saw in urban walls. He called the series Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation.
In a 1978 interview, Siskind explained what had attracted him about the divers: “I was walking along the lake in Chicago, and I saw these guys jumping off a diving board. It was a beautiful Sunday, and I was just walking along with my Rolleiflex. I sat down and started taking pictures of them without knowing exactly what I was doing, only that I was taking pictures of divers. The results didn’t particularly interest me until I looked at one that struck me. This guy was a diver, but he wasn’t a diver. He was levitating as if in a dream state, and then I knew what I was after.”
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Aaron Siskind
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Title
- Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1954
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Medium
- Gelatin silver print
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Inscriptions
- Inscribed recto, along lower edge, in black ink: "Xmas, 1961-Greetings + all The / best. Caroline + Aaron Siskind"
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Dimensions
- Image: 12 × 11.6 cm (4 3/4 × 4 5/8 in.); Paper: 17.3 × 11.7 cm (6 13/16 × 4 5/8 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of the Illinois Arts Council
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Reference Number
- 1976.1258
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Copyright
- © Aaron Siskind Foundation.
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
