This stunning photograph by Argentinian-born, Boston-educated artist Guillermo Srodek-Hart depicts a hand-operated broom making machine. Dynamic and painterly, this work is a particularly striking example of the artist’s capacity and the project’s depth. The subjects Guillermo Srodek-Hart captures of the Argentinian countryside and lost trades are made with a large format camera. To The artist, these are not simply documents of a lost way of life, they are portraits.
Wear patters in the space reveal a history of use, and suggest of motion of production. It is as if we see the ghost of the patron moving in space, though he is not present. To the right, the raw materials- straw, broom handles. In the back corner- colored twine- red and green strands seem precut; they hang almost festively like pom poms at the apex of motion. Just to the left, a leaver of the machine asks to be pulled across a heavy metal arch of the apparatus, and the paint on the back wall mirrors its arching shape. The wall itself is stained and chipped, and we imagine warn free of paint where the swish, swish of the straws must have gently brushed against it as the materials became brooms year after year. The final products stand against the back, awaiting final touches, and bundling. A few groups of finished brooms stand upright together as if soldiers ready to be sent to service.
Garcías Broom Making Shop headlined a 2014 solo show, Storeis. This photograph also appears in a monograph published by Prestel by the same name. It collects Srodek-Hart’s body of work made over a decade. The artist’s remarks on the place follow:
Mr. García told me he was having problems with his trade. For one thing, the materials were hard to find, since, to my surprise, there are different brooms that require different straws. He was upset because people were buying cheap imports rather than his handmade products. There was also another problem, which was that García needed someone to help him in the shop, and he told me that his apprentices would last no more than a couple of weeks. So he had given up trying to teach the trade. Twice I drove out to visit him, and on both occasions the shop was closed. I am still trying to find him.
Guillermo Srodek-Hart
Garcías Broom Making Shop, 2013
30 x 38 in. pigment print | Edition of 7
$4,500 print | $5,500 framed
Stories by Guillermo Srodek-Hart
Monograph by Prestel