Beauty in decay

In their damage, Costica Acsinte's portraits took on new meaning.

Alex Q. Arbuckle

1930-1945

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Costică Acsinte was born Constantin Axinte in Romania in 1897. He served as a combat photographer in World War I and opened a photography studio — “Foto Splendid Acsinte” — in the town of Slobozia in 1930.Shooting mostly with a large format camera and glass plate negatives, he captured the residents of Slobozia for 30 years before retiring in 1960.After his death in 1984, 5,000 of his glass negatives were acquired by the Ialomița County History Museum.Many of the fragile glass plates had sustained damage over the years, warped by heat and moisture, the glass cracked and splintered, the delicate silver gelatin emulsion peeled, flaked and sloughed off.Marked by time and entropy, these decaying photos of Romanian life in the lead-up to World War II take on a haunting, melancholy quality. The destruction of the photos added a new artistic layer, by accident.

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