In celebration of its 80th birthday and the 10th anniversary of the museum's expansion, the Henry Art Gallery has mounted a show that it describes as "mind bending and eye popping" And they hit the mark. The show consists mostly of photographs, and many defy your expectations of what a photograph should be. All have been added to the Henry collection in the past decade. They are exhibited along with a few videos and other artworks
Associate Curator Sarah Krajewski created the exhibition around two themes. She encourages the visitor to pay attention to the manner in which photography has affected the way we view the world. We are bombarded by photographic images constantly and, as a result, have begun to see photographically. This photographic vision has become influential in creating our visual literacy. She also wants us to be aware of the interplay between what the photographer sees and how the images that are created change as the technology advances.
She carries the themes forward by organizing the exhibit in six categories: Parallax, Frame, Focus, Cameraless, Exposure and Voyeur. It's a system of organization that closely resembles the one put forward by John Szarkowski of New York's Museum of Modern Art, who died this month and is considered by many to be the most influential curator photography has ever had.
Parallax refers to the apparent shift of an object against its background caused when the observer changes position. Our brains are so used to this phenomenon that we adjust to it automatically. But with a camera one can create remarkable effects.
This is beautifully exemplified in Ori Gersht's "Concrete City Scans: Rotation no. 2." This large (50-by-60-inch) chromogenic print resembles a Mark Rothko color field painting where swaths of color sweep across a canvas. Gersht created this effect with a long exposure taken in a rotating restaurant.
In Nic Nicosia's "Middletown" video, the viewer watches as the camera goes round and round the same leafy subdivision streets. We revisit the same lawns, the same trees, the same houses, but each time round typical or weird suburban events are taking place. The title of this wry statement on American life comes, no doubt, from Robert and Helen Lynd's classic study of small-town America. Revolutionary when it was published 70 years ago, their "Middletown" is a sociology classic.
In the gallery devoted to Frame and Focus, the viewer is asked to consider the effect of framing and the mechanics of focus. Windows, doorways, buildings and hedges - among other things - frame our natural vision. For the photographer, framing a picture is key to composition, and it's the device that determines what's included and what's shut out.
The photographer who plays with focus can clarify images or, just as easily, mimic the imperfections of the human eye and the wandering attention of the human mind. Uta Barth in "Untitled (98.5)." does the latter. Her landscape grouping has a fuzzy quality to it, suggesting the blurred vision of the nearsighted or the unfocused observer.
The Cameraless gallery gives honor to Man Ray and others in the early 20th century who revolutionized the art of photography. Here we see the work of the modern experimenters. A fine example is James Welling's "IGPG (from the Degrades series)." It's an abstraction that was made by exposing his film to tinted light. It includes every color in the rainbow
The word "exposure" has a number of meanings, and in the gallery devoted to this concept we see them all. There are prints that have been double exposed, overexposed, time exposed. Wolfgang Tillman's "Sternenhimmel" time exposure of a night sky shows the movement of the stars, something we know about but can't see at a single glance with the naked eye. We also see works that expose their subjects. Nan Goldin's "Joey with her heart-shaped breasts, NYC" gives full attention to the bosom of the title.
The Voyeur segment of the show comprises an installation by Josiah McElheny, "An Historical Anecdote About Fashion." Central to the work is a puce-colored cocktail dress from the 1940s, a wonderful example of the "New Look," the postwar style that included a narrow waist and a billowy, below-the-knee skirt. Across from the dress is a display case filled with blown glass bottles, all mirroring that shape. McElheny imagines the glassblowers being inspired by their furtive looks at a beautiful and fashionable woman.
Categories are something people impose on nature, not something that exists a priori. Many things at the borders of those categories can find a home in one grouping or another. Thus one can quibble with the placement of a number of the works on display in this show. Does Gersht belong in Exposure rather than Parallax? Does Tillman belong in Focus rather than Exposure? But it really doesn't matter. What curator Krajewski has done is assemble some fascinating examples of modern photography in an intellectually stimulating fashion, thus serving both mind and eye.
'VIEWFINDER'
Henry Art Gallery,
University of Washington
Through Dec 30
Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Tuesdays through Sundays,
Thursdays until 8 p.m.
Admission free through Labor Day, after which prices are $10 for the general public, $6 for seniors; all others free
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