touching strangers

For anyone in New York, I highly recommend my friend Richard's show at Hermès, which is up through the 28th of May. Touching Strangers is a series of portraits of people who don't know each other and don't know Richard. The results subvert the standard expectations of a portrait, in that the storylines are scrambled. Some people look totally comfortable with each other, as if they weren't strangers at all. With others there's a semblance of familiarity, undermined by a too-stiff arm, an embrace that doesn't complete, or a lingering suspicion in one party's eyes. As you go through the exhibit, figuring out who's with who, the portraits reveal your snap judgments. You pick up the codes in the uniforms. Your constant, subconscious appraisals become clearer: how quickly you type people, the class judgments you make. Photography is famous for the way it selects an instant to freeze time. In the moments chosen for Touching Strangers you can glimpse a different level of human connection, beyond the predictability of conventional portraiture.