José NICOLAS (1956) - Lot 260

José NICOLAS (1956) The Ghosts of Deh-e Yahya Village near Kabul, Afghanistan, 2008 Lambda print On back, signed, dated, titled, located, numbered Dimensions including margins: 50 x 40 cm Note: In the ruins of a deserted village near Kabul, three veiled figures walk slowly along a collapsed wall. Their presence, almost immaterial, seems to float in this mineral landscape marked by abandonment and silence. The soft, dusty light envelops the scene in a suspended atmosphere, where time seems frozen. Through this stripped-down composition, José Nicolas evokes less a precise event than a state: that of a territory haunted by absence, memory and the invisible traces of shattered lives. The image oscillates between documentary and poetry, transforming these anonymous figures into symbols of a fragile humanity in the face of erasure.