'the pleasures and terrors of levitation' (aaron siskind)

‘the pleasures and terrors of levitation’ (aaron siskind)

leap:fly (Aaron Siskind) — photo: aaron siskind

Leafing through the current New Yorker, we came across this image by Aaron Siskind in an advertisement for Swann Gallery’s upcoming photography auction. It is called ‘Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation #99’. Loving images of people flying and leaping, we poked around, to discover that in the 60’s, Siskind made a series of divers suspended in mid-leap against the sky. You can see more of the series at the George Eastman House, and at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, which had this to say:

…Shot with a hand-held twin-lens reflex camera at the edge of Lake Michigan in Chicago, the balance and conflict suggested by the series’ title is evident in the divers’ sublime contortions.

No doubt. Balance AND conflict are the deal when taking a leap and Siskind caught it perfectly.

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