The Silence

After moving to New York in 1982, Alfredo Jaar turned from architecture to photographic installation work. His projects address the harsh conditions of life in eco-nomically underdeveloped regions “to bring news of the world to the art world.” In his 1987 installation 1+1+1, three photographic light boxes displayed upside-down images of Salvadoran street children, including this one. He cropped photojournalist Steve Cagan’s original photograph at the children’s waists, removing their faces and leaving only the distended bellies and bare feet that signal their impoverished condition. On the floor below each light box, gold frames suggested three different relationships between art and reality: detachment (an empty frame), self-reflection (frames within frames), and a limited but corrected reflection (a framed mirror).