“Permuth’s world is wholly night. His night is not merely the absence of sunlight. It is a moment when reality sheds its skin and the truth beneath begins to emerge. Though documenting scenes of Cuba, Permuth transcends documentary realism. Referencing Milton’s “darkness visible,” he emphasizes blindness as a mode of perception. He makes visible the darkness within daylight and reveals the visible in the pitch-black night. The “majestic, aged, and crumbling landscape” of Havana’s old quarter unsettles and enthralls the artist, as noted in his statement. This emotional disorientation—where boundaries collapse—is daytime imbued with night. In Centro Habana, where open windows and doors erase the division between inside and outside, darkness gathers thick as ink between flickering streetlights. Glimpses of brightly lit interiors through open doors are at once outside and inside. For Permuth, everything is night—a space where the real and the unreal, clarity and delirium, despair and ecstasy coexist. He captures these fleeting nights in photographs. Night is despair, and also hope. It is both destination and departure. Only by sleeping can we awaken; only by embracing night can we anticipate morning. The long journey into night is a black love, a descent into despair. Yet by accepting our fate and arriving at night, we begin to dream again. Night is the detour of life”.
From Lev Ahn’s preface to the exhibition “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” @iseurrat Iseurrat Artroom.
