© Jaime Permuth, 2023
A beautiful photograph of Borges in his library in Buenos Aires by Eduardo Comesaña, 1971. For the past several months, and as an extension of my project “Olmedini El Mago”, I’ve been researching the ways blindness is represented in art, particularly in photography. The results of my inquiry are posted to my instagram account: @jaime_permuth
“Nadie rebaje a lágrima o reproche
esta declaración de la maestría
de Dios, que con magnífica ironía
me dio a la vez los libros y la noche”.
"I like Ralph Gibson and psychedelic rock and roll from the 60s. Oh, and I only shoot film".
This is how fifteen-year-old Mark, from Hong Kong introduced himself to me at the New York Film Academy. NYFA had asked me to mentor him one-on-one for a week. I agreed without really knowing what to expect.
As Mark was taking out a Nikon FM2 from his backpack, I asked him for the title of his favorite Gibson book. Without skipping a beat he replied: The Somnambulist.
Our whole exchange reminded me of that short story from the "Book of Sand" where a young Borges has a conversation with an aging stranger on a park bench overlooking the Charles River.
The stranger turns out to be his older self, sitting next to him across time.
