Turning the pages of Hesitating Beauty I feel a rising sadness.
And I feel gratitude for the fact that Joshua Lutz found a language that lets us imagine the outlook of a women who has lost her balance early in life.
The pains we are subjected to we do not dare to share. Thus we stay alone. But Joshua Lutz opens a door, and we are told about a childhood that was threatening and didn´t offer safety. And we realize that the author survived hell still staying sane. There might be hope for all of us.
My mind wanders off, pondering about the reasons for a life gone adrift, and I wonder about a child deeply hurt, and how he bears with this hurt, now grown up. The world is dark and threatening in Joshua Lutz´s photographs, shadows turn alive ready to attack, and we might feel some of the fear this woman sensed. She looked for answers, as we all do.
And we see a young and lovely woman, and we reach out to her, as we always do, but then she changes, turns into a wrack, de -individualized by her illness, depersonalized by medication and helpless treatment. And we see a man, marked by life, and we listen to him, talking silently about that what has happened. And we a read some of the messages Joshua Lutz mother wrote.
The silent voice of the man, and the short notes of the woman, they tell differing stories of lives that crossed at one moment in time. As long photographers want to tell us something about reality instead of merely hinting at it,they will have to use words to go by their images.
Photographs don´t transport the layers behind the visible that help us in our fumbling attempts to understand reality. Here the kaleidoscopic use of text snippets and images opens us the door to enter a room created It is a room modeled after reality. But we have to be aware of the fact that existential situations in life never can be represented
To cope with a childhood like Joshua Lutz has gone through,there has to be a mirror to look into, there have to be words for explanations, there had to be an attempt to understand that was happened.Its a long way to go.
And now I could write about the subtle color code connecting the images,and the evil numbers popping up now. I could write about the shadow man,I could write about the images of a young and beautiful woman and the sadness I feel about her wasted life, but I want to end with the words of Joshua’s mother:
I am so sorry.
image and book by Joshua Lutz