During his life, the painter David Alfaro Siqueiros collected thousands of images—including pictures cut out of magazines or sourced from other people—and meticulously ordered them into categories: “Architecture,” “People and Historical Figures,” “Objects,” “Models,” “Paintings,” “Sculptures,” “Workers and Industry,” and “Misery.” His intention was that this archive should be made available to other artists after his death, which came in 1974. Three decades later, the artist Anri Sala was invited by curators to explore it.
Going through this extraordinary resource, “where there is everything about life,” Sala came across two black-and-white photographs showing a man throwing himself to his death from a high wall. That these were included in the category of “Architecture” surprised Sala, who wondered why the artist had not classified them under “Misery” or some new category entirely. Looking for answers, he decides to put the question to the artist himself…
