Eponanonymous

Rarely does one encounter a survey exhibition that is less sprawling than this one.  Co-curated by gallery director Jessie Washburne-Harris and artist Lisa Oppenheim, “A Twilight Art” reaches across recent generations of photographers to describe the transitional condition that contemporary photography finds itself in.  The thematic thread is that the old chemistry (and its limitations) is giving way to new digitized methods (and their limitations); the show’s thesis, then, is to present how this shift is expressed by twenty photographers whose subjects are particularly dependent on the point where an image emerges from its material substrate.  There is plenty of excellent work here, all of it presented elegantly.  This viewer’s main quibble is that the overall effect is rather like a sci-fi movie set in the future, where all the people are wearing the same streamlined uniforms…the elegance comes to feel like an expression of cautiousness rather than conviction.

Anne Collier / Developing Tray #1 (Grey) / 2008 / 38 x 47 inches / c-print
[This work is not in the exhibition, but is very similar to one that is.]

Whether it is because of cross-pollination, or simply that some dilemmas have solutions evident to more than one artist, there is also a sense here that names could change but the works remain the same.  Josh Brand and Walead Beshty (and Lisa Oppenheim, had she chosen to include different works of hers) show photogram prints made by arranging color gels on photo paper and exposing them directly.  Simon Dybbroe Møller shows black and white prints that appear to have been folded, directly exposed, and flattened, basically the precise technique Beshty has used to great effect in the past.  Josh Brand also includes a black print with a single line incised into the emulsion:  while this is one of the most satisfying pieces here, it also immediately evokes the more labored and personal work of Marco Breuer.  Barbara Kasten’s large photograph is all too easy to mistake for an Eileen Quinlan.  This viewer read the checklist incorrectly and assumed for too long that Markus Amm’s three photos were done by Matt Saunders (that is, washy and gray).  And finally there is Tauba Auerbach’s photo of static, the commonness of which shows that she is over-extended and over-exposed, an artist-in-demand that needs to replenish her well.

Still, the visual principle that pervades the show is a valid one, and a welcome relief from a decade’s worth of set-up narrative photography of the Wall / Crewdson school.  Liz Deschenes shines as usual with her Left / Right (2008), a creamy print mounted on aluminum and floated in a white frame.  The shallow depth-of-field creates an immediate emotional aura, which is nicely balanced by a cold, optical rigor.

Erika Vogt’s two Number Portraits (2004) cleverly blend the abstract “enantiomorphic chamber” effect with actual dice tumbling and reflecting.  The modes have something to discuss, even as they cancel each other out.  Sarah Charlesworth’s two prints operate in a similar fashion: they depict “abstraction” (a color chart or a schematic cube) as the result of a special arrangement of otherwise normal things.

Anne Collier brings wit, drama, and touch to her Developing Tray #1 (White) (2008).  The photograph of an eye seemingly “developing” in its tray captures the detachment affecting photographic images as they pass through multiple material embodiments.  It is brought home in a singular way by the realization that the light source reflecting brightly on the eyeball is not in the space with the camera making this shot.  That moment is already lost, a poignant reminder that materials dissipate, and exclude, with ruthless efficiency.

David Batchelor is the only artist that manages to avoid showing “a picture in a nice frame” (aside from Wolfgang Tillmans, who doesn’t count, strangely, for reasons of his own long-established personal convention).  The material presence of Batchelor’s grid of photos stuck directly to the wall, aligned by visible pencil marks, is the only place in this show where the photographic content has successfully negotiated its way out of rote, commercially-friendly confines.  His Found Monochromes (1997 - 2001) document the eroded substrata of message-carrier systems, an idea re-inforced by the images’ proximity to the wall, itself the substrata for all the other pictures.

Which brings this viewer back to the lingering sense of cautiousness cited above.  The “current economic climate” must inevitably affect the strategies and products of artists and galleries alike.  But one can’t help but feel that the smooth sheen glossing these works is the result of commercial compromise.  It’s too bad, because this same selection of artists could result in a show with more raw edges, and more to say about how photography is going to emerge from its digital chrysalis.  And as for whether this contemporary moment is the twilight of anything…I suppose the sentimentality of lamenting a passing leaves one less vulnerable than the gooey hopefulness of celebrating a new dawn.  But frankly, what’s happening to photography is clearly for the best, lest it suffer the same fate as –gasp– printmaking.