Golden Apple of the Sun
Teju Cole
Teju Cole’s Golden Apple of the Sun pairs an essay — in the artist's ever-eloquent style — with still-life photographs taken on his kitchen counter.
“I want to photograph the counter the way I photograph a mountain: with my eyes, not with my hands,” Cole writes about his still-lifes. He makes a point of never arranging his kitchen scenes. Even as he consciously references the work of masters like Jean Chardin and Juriaan van Streeck, he relies on accidental compositions. This feels appropriate, given that chance, uncertainty, and a loss of control, is palpable in the book. Cole took these in the period leading up to the 2020 elections when Covid and politics filled the days with a mixture of fear and boredom. In this state of suspension, each photo is timestamped, giving us meticulous documentation of spoons, ladles, and lemon peels.
His companion essay isn’t so much an explanation of the photographs, as a loose, dreamlike reflection on topics like his own relationship to food, on art history, and photography and loss. The essay takes winding twists and turns through Cole’s memory — the most beautiful passage might be a story about biting into a raw tomato during his boarding school years. Both photo and text give an entryway into Cole’s state of mind seemingly before the cutting board or the stove top, day after day, minute after minute, during one the of most uncertain periods in recent memory.
“I want to photograph the counter the way I photograph a mountain: with my eyes, not with my hands,” Cole writes about his still-lifes. He makes a point of never arranging his kitchen scenes. Even as he consciously references the work of masters like Jean Chardin and Juriaan van Streeck, he relies on accidental compositions. This feels appropriate, given that chance, uncertainty, and a loss of control, is palpable in the book. Cole took these in the period leading up to the 2020 elections when Covid and politics filled the days with a mixture of fear and boredom. In this state of suspension, each photo is timestamped, giving us meticulous documentation of spoons, ladles, and lemon peels.
His companion essay isn’t so much an explanation of the photographs, as a loose, dreamlike reflection on topics like his own relationship to food, on art history, and photography and loss. The essay takes winding twists and turns through Cole’s memory — the most beautiful passage might be a story about biting into a raw tomato during his boarding school years. Both photo and text give an entryway into Cole’s state of mind seemingly before the cutting board or the stove top, day after day, minute after minute, during one the of most uncertain periods in recent memory.
