It’s not clear why a woman is swimming with a pig in Texas, or what overturned the tricycle in the desolate suburb of Albuquerque, or whether the dwarfish man in New York who looks menacingly at the woman in the dark hat is angry, or hungry for an assignation. The photographs of Garry Winogrand, on view in a comprehensive retrospective of his career at the National Gallery of Art, give only enough information to establish which pieces are on the chess board, but we don’t know who is playing, if anyone is winning, or whether there’s a game on at all. It’s possible, like the pattern waves make on the beach, that this is all random, undirected and meaningless. *
Source
