A Visual Inventory by John Pawson

If nothing else, an active photographic pursuit (in taking as well as viewing pictures) reminds us of the importance of looking. It’s an exercise that trains the eye and mind to steal quick moments of intrigue from our everyday environment. Simply (and somewhat platitudinously) put, it makes us aware of the potential beauty in every situation.

John Pawson’s A Visual Inventory is a kind of treatise on the powerful effect of purposeful seeing. Culled from a lifetime of photographic documentation, Pawson’s work is a testament to the visual interest inherent in unlikely places. His photographs rarely present a traditional subject or narrative, but, rather, what catches his eye are subtle lines, shapes, and forms–the geometry of environments. This phenomenon can be found everywhere, and it’s stunning to behold, especially when we realize that it’s as often the result of accident as intention. Incidental beauty–these subtle but pervasive designs–are what Pawson is keen to share with us.

Formally, A Visual Inventory is made up of pairs photos with some kind of shared theme. At times the pairings can rely a bit too heavily on obvious compositional parities, but, as a whole, the doubling and comparing of often disparate subjects is a powerful reminder of the visual world’s underlying structures. This is not to say that, when you get right down to it, everything is the same–far from it. It’s that there’s something powerful in being able to glean a consonant geometry that’s present everywhere we look. If, of course, we bother to do so.