Jan Groover
American, 1943-2012
Untitled, 1980

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nicholas and Steven were my partners. We looked around for a few minutes, wanting to find a truly interesting photograph, and when we came upon this untitled one from 1980 by Jan Groover, our attention was caught. The emotions in the photo are extremely prominent to the viewer. The studium we can clearly tell, through the postures of the people in the photograph, is an overwhelming feeling of grief.  But, what is causing this grief? A loss of a loved one? Financial troubles? Although we cannot possibly know the true reason for their emotions, we can assume. We also questioned weather the photo is staged or a real event. Who are these people? Does the artist know them? Notice how none of the peoples’ faces are showing. Was this done intentionally? As a group we decided that the hiding of the faces makes the photo and its message more universal. Those three people could be anyone. Therefore, the hiding of the faces can be seen as some sort of universal tragedy that Jan Groover was trying to expose to the public through the photo. The punctum for us is the hand of the woman on the far left. As viewers, our attention was captured by this mysterious woman’s hand. The positioning it is in; half opened, half closed, and in addition to her posture tells a lot about this photo. She is clearly experiencing some form of grief, and like most people, she is wishing to deal with it by herself rather than accepting the comfort of the man on the right. You can tell through his hand that he wants to comfort her, yet her hand is waving him off, telling a lot about her as a person and about the nature of the photo itself. If the hand were opened a little more her action would be much less stern, indicating that she was unsure if she wanted comfort or not. Oppositely, if her hand was closed further her action would seem much more aggressive, as if she was angry with the man, but in the manner that it is we can tell that she simply does not want comfort at the moment. She wants to deal with the situation independently. There are so many things a person could take from this photo depending on the perspective one looks at it through. Overall, it is a photo the catches your attention and once it does, the woman’s hand draws you in, causing you to ask a multitude of questions.