He is a photographer who chooses to break up compositions, to make maverick use of the camera. Some of his photographs are from the analog era, others—the ones he takes with his cell phone—are more recent. El mundo del arte (The Art World), the series of photos of his friends, of the people who were right in the thick of it—building a scene, having fun, saying goodbye to lovers who were dying of AIDS—was taken with a pocket camera. He could not frame with the direct viewfinder of a pocket camera as he could with a reflex, but he did not want to end up taking family photos. His artist friends faced a similar problem: I have this basin, this box, this piece of wood, and I want to take it out of its domestic setting without it losing its charm entirely. That’s how you make art—it might seem simple, but it’s not.

As a photographer, and as a curator, he always explores uncomfortable terrain. He is little understood in his home gild (the photographers’ gild), and he often fails to meet the expectations of art institutions. When he gets bored of slapdash images, he climbs up a flight of stairs and frames perfectly a monument lost somewhere in the city. He flees everything, even melancholy. Sometimes he vexes us. The same author who portrays a neoclassical statue stands on the corner of Corrientes and Pueyrredón avenues—an intersection where architecture is lost amidst so many competing billboards—and shoots his camera. More than once, he has invited photographers whom the documentary eye deems superficial to show work. Alberto, like everyone, defines himself according to who he has in front of him. But he raises the stakes. And that means eluding categories, it means truly open tastes.

Alberto Goldenstein’s photographs are somehow close at hand; anyone could take them. They are open images, never closed-off or distant “great works.” In that determination to shake off any antiquated gesture lies a lesson—and many have learned from it. Without setting out to, he has become a mentor.