Ron Jude

I am looking at a photograph of a sculpture of a man carved out of snow. The photograph is rendered in halftone on yellowing newsprint, which further flattens an already technically difficult subject. It has been clipped from a newspaper and is without caption. At first glance, the snowman looks like Santa Claus. Unlike most likenesses of Santa Claus, however, there is something menacing about the image. If not Santa Claus, then who? Somebody important enough to justify days of chilled labor, but that doesn’t narrow it down much—there are so many important bearded men. The photograph was taken at night with a flash, which makes the sculpture float in space, and creates an ambiguous sense of scale. The ferociousness of the snarling dogs (wolves?) bracketing the man collides with his jovial smile. The man is wearing a necklace and a hat. Do these adornments mean something? The obtuseness and contradictions of the picture frustrate me. Its emptiness leaves me mildly irritated. Like most photographs, this image proposes to offer a narrative that echoes the (equally dubious) back-story of the subject, yet delivers only dead-ends and circular incomprehension. It is perfect in its mute stubbornness. It is alive in its refusal to be known.