35 Claver Place

Steven Samet has opened the door on a private, intimate, and mundane world, a place we visit briefly but regularly to satisfy basic needs and cravings but seldom for a prolonged look at what is actually revealed in that cold light. Samet invites us to indulge not for the sake of our stomachs but for the delight of our eyes and imagination. What visual and mental nutrients are to be found in these worlds of constant flux and variety, of ingredients and choices, of labels and brands?

writing on Steven Samet

For the immediate world, everything is to be discerned, for him who can discern it, and certainly and simply, without either dissection into science, or digestion into art, but with the whole of consciousness, seeking to perceive it as it stands: so that the aspect of a street in sunlight can roar in the heart of itself as a symphony, perhaps as no symphony can: and all of consciousness shifted from the imagined, the revisive, to the effort to perceive simply the cruel radiance of what is. James Agee [Fr. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1939]

We must introduce what is here seen and touched into wider, into the widest orbit. So it is important not only NOT to run down and degrade all that is here, but just because of its provisionalness, which it shares with us, these phenomena and things should be understood and transformed by us in a most fervent sense. Transformed? Yes, for it is our task to imprint this provisional, perishable earth so deeply, so patiently and passionately in ourselves that its reality shall arise in us again invisibly. Ranier Maria Rilke [Fr. Letters, Vol. II, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1947/1948]

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

William Carlos Williams

Steven Samet has opened the door on a private, intimate, and mundane world, a place we visit briefly but regularly to satisfy basic needs and cravings but seldom for a prolonged look at what is actually revealed in that cold light. Samet invites us to indulge not for the sake of our stomachs but for the delight of our eyes and imagination. What visual and mental nutrients are to be found in these worlds of constant flux and variety, of ingredients and choices, of labels and brands?

Apt. 710

There is nothing new in this approach to photography. Photographers have always directed our attention and asked us to reconsider and value those things we have overlooked. What the photographer selects for our attention gives meaning to this use of the medium and reveals the genius, if any, of the mind behind the camera. And knowing that these are pictures and not the actual jars of pickles or cartons of orange juice we remain willing to suspend our awareness, to make comparisons of the evidence depicted and thus continue to confirm the power and belief in the photograph.
Apt. 406
Why are refrigerator interiors a worthy subject for the camera? In fact isn't the refrigerator a metaphor for the camera? Doesn't the camera like the refrigerator preserve and defend against the ravages of time? On some level don't these photographs remind us of the ephemeral and transitory nature of all things? In this time of uncertainty and change perhaps they represent a desire to preserve the evidence of our culture. Perhaps these photographs act as memento mores reminding us of our own mortality? Perhaps like a cryogenetically preserved Walt Disney or Ted Williams we unconsciously wish to preserve our own souls on ice. And will not these images, in time, gain greater significance as cultural evidence? Or isn't it just really fascinating to see what's in other peoples refrigerators?

Rick Hock
Director of Exhibitions
International Museum of Photography and Film
At George Eastman House

Apt. 308