Love

Adam Fuss

1992 · Silver dye bleach print · Photographs

With his large-scale color photograms of water, babies, or, in this case, rabbits, Adam Fuss has breathed new life into the cameraless technique that became the hallmark of such modernist photographers as Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy in the 1920s. Fuss made this image by placing two slaughtered and eviscerated rabbits on a photosensitized sheet of paper and exposing it to light. The spectacular color effects result from the chemical interactions between the rabbits' viscera and the properties of the printing paper. Combining the expansive gestures of Action Painting with the composed symmetry of a heraldic seal, Fuss turns this traditional symbol of fertility into an emblem of the rapturous, often gut-wrenching intertwining of two selves united in love.

Artist

Adam Fuss

Date

1992

Medium

Silver dye bleach print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, Rogers Fund, by exchange, and Joyce and Robert Menschel Gift, 1997