Red Couch

This photograph from 2007 is exemplary of the oeuvre of the Belgian photographer who manages to transcend the apparent banality of everyday life with the addition of a poetic, humorous, but above all alienating dimension. After all, a photograph by Jimmy Kets (1979) tells much more than what the image shows. Averse to any staging, he records a reality that – usually only after a second viewing – rouses the viewer from slumber or encourages him or her to reflect. Behind each image is a hidden world that only comes into view by pondering its latent absurdity. This is also where the art and essence of true photography lie: recording a broader Zeitgeist or a larger picture of an era on the basis of the record of a single, well-chosen moment.

In a photograph by Jimmy Kets, the characters are always in a random, but above all unusual and awkward relation to their surroundings. This is all the more true of Red Couch, a photograph in which four items immediately draw attention: a luxurious interior, a red velvet couch, an absent young woman, and an empty wineglass. Speculations can start right away, because the recognition of the first glimpse has immediately gone. Is she waiting for someone or has she fallen into a drunken slumber? Is she in a hotel, discotheque or a brothel? Is there a party going on, or is it the morning after? The viewer decides. What remains is a frozen picture of a universal and solitary moment.

The alienation that this image conjures up is reinforced by the photographer’s careful choice of a frame. The gold of the back rest forms an elegant diagonal that cuts the image in two and separates the foreground from the background. The empty wineglass – the symbol for countless interpretations and speculations – is not in the centre of the image for nothing.

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