By Michele Leight
This year's wunderkinds at The Museum of Modern Art's New Photograpy Series are Roe Ethridge, Elad Lassry, Alex Prager and Amanda Ross-Ho. These artists draw from the past, and from their own world, often simultaneously, and do not hesitate to mix professional assignments into their art work. For the first time two artists include film in their installations - the US debut of Alex Prager's "Despair," (2010) and Elad Lassry's "Untitled," (2009). Since it began in 1985, the New Photography series has introduced the work of over 70 artists from 16 countries. This showcase of recent work in contemporary photography is in its 25th year, and is sponsored by the Carl Jacobs Foundation. New Photography 2010 is organized by Rozana Marcoci, Curator, Department of Photography. New Photography 2010 is sponsored by the Carl Jacobs Foundation.
"Desiree," by Alex Prager, from the series "The Big Valley," 2008, chromogenic color print, 36 by 48 1/2 inches, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired through the generosity of the Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Linda and Gregory Fischbach, and William S. Susman and Emily Glasser © 2010 Alex Prager, courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery
Alex Prager's (American, born 1979) 4-minute debut short film, "Despair," starring Bryce Dallas Howard, is set in 1960s Los Angeles. Photographic "stills" from the film are included in the show, like "Despair" illustrated at the top of this story. The film is based on the "The Red Shoes," (1948), a beautifully conceived film about a prima ballerina who is forced to choose between art (dance) and love. She cannot decide and her dilemma leads to her death. One of the scenes is filmed in the voyeuristic style Alfred Hitchcock used in "Rear Window." We see the heroine flitting back and forth agitatedly - from the outside looking in - through her apartment windows, recalling James Stewart watching his neighbors with a powerful zoom lens while convalescing with a broken leg. He was a photographer by profession. Prager re-imagines well known material from the past, and describes her 4 minute film as a "full sensory version" of her photographs.
Scene from Alex Prager's short film "Despair"
Crowd watches Alex Prager's "Despair" in at MoMA
Elad Lassry (Israeli, born 1977), does not imitate Hitchcock but borrows - outright - an image of Anthony Perkins from one of his most famous films, and makes him the subject of his photograph.
The mundane title of the painting derives from the background color of the silkscreen: orange, gold, silver, etc. MoMA has one of the most famous "Gold Marilyn"s in it's permanent collection, currently on view in an installation called "On To Pop." However, Marilyn Monroe gazes out from a more central position on her large canvas, while Lassry's placement of Anthony Perkins leaves him in danger of falling out of the small space he occupies.
Elad Lassry's film "Untitled" is "displayed" with his photographs
None of Lassry's photographs are larger than 11 1/2 by 14 inches - the size of a generously proportioned magazine. A film student at CalArts who then earned his MFA at The University of Southern California, Lassry's visual vocabulary is culled from archival film and vintage magazines. As a flimmaker well versed in building stories with images - which he does well - Lassry sets them within frames that match the dominant color of his photographs, "objectifying" them as Jasper Johns celebrated the "object-hood" of his now iconic flag paintings, by continuing the painting over the sides of the canvas. Lassry's "layering" of mediums and motifs becomes extremely sophisticated in works like "Wall" (2008) (not illustrated), and "Textile (For Him and Her)," (2009), illustrated above.
If he
occasionally gets bored
with the static properties of photography, Lassry substitutes
16 mm film projections - not an unusual urge for a filmmaker.
"Untitled," (2009), features Eric Stoltz as a choreographer
teaching steps to a dancer dressed in red, which heightens the
tension between stillness within the moving image and the impermanence
of the static image.
"Old Fruit," by Roe Ethridge, (American, born 1969), 2010, chromogenic color print, 50 by 40 inches, courtesy of the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, photo by MoMA
Roe Ethridge's (American, born 1969), moldy "Old Fruit" (2010) defies the perfect fruit specimens in glossy advertisements, or the meticulously contrived still lives of the great artists of the past, when painting a bowl of fruit was important (illustrated above). An innocent little pumpkin sticker is photographed close-up, then supersized, and suddenly it does not look so benign; a Chanel advertisement in the New York Times is transposed just as it is, and given special treatment as an "art" photograph.
A beautiful, Vermeer-esque model, "Debora Muller with Tripod," (illustrated), is wearing an Alexander McQueen shirt, and poses with a tripod, not in front of it. Her hand blocks her mouth, which traditionally would not happen in a formal portrait, or fashion photograph. Showing the entire face would be mandatory.
Installation of Roe Etheridge's Photographs at MoMA
Inconsistency, and turning photographic and artistic convention on its head, is carefully calibrated in Roe Ethridges' work. So is the studied way in which his compositions are reshuffled, sequenced and laid out. "Commes des Garcons Scarf with Glass Plate," (2010), is exactly what it says it is, but the plate is from Bed, Bath and Beyond's website. Any and all sources of material, including those currently in cirulation and "out-takes" from his commercial work, are worthy contenders in his strangely soothing "visual fugues." The portrait is outstanding.
"Untitled Detail (Atmosphere)," by Amanda Ross-Ho, American, born 1975, 2007, chromogenic color print, with wooden shelf, 28 by 28 by 4 inches, collection Drew Katz.
Amanda Ross Ho,
(American, born 1975),
mixes more media in her work than any of the other photographer/artists
in this show. The Joseph Cornell-like assemblage "Untitled
Detail (Atmosphere)," (2007), shown above, includes a color
print featuring the earth, tapes, brush, and other professional
paraphernalia pinned on a perforated backdrop, (a recurring theme
for the artist), and a discarded pile of rolled up paper, and
tapes - the detritis - used in its creation. The winsome
photo-installation
rests on a wooden shelf like an ordinary object. It is not "hung"
like an important photograph in a museum or on a gallery wall.
Similarly, "Expose for the Shadows, Develop for the Highlights
(Perforated Sampler): White Light, Crewel Point, Triangle 208.33%,
Glasses (His), Portrait (Hers)," rests casually at an angle
against the wall and is not hung at all. This collage/installation
includes found images scanned from craft manuals and photography
textbooks - prosaic, useful, not artistic - but gets more personal
with the insertion of a beautiful gelatin silver print taken by
her mother in the 1970s, and a reprint from a large color transparency
of a slick professional photograph of drinking glasses taken by
her father during his work as a commercial photographer.
Ross-Ho grew up in a family of professional photographers. She posed as a model for test shots taken by her father and uncle, and stood beside her mother when she worked in the darkroom when she was a child.The line between commerce and craft is not observed by this composer of thought provoking photographs, with original results. Her installations often include mural-scale inkjet prints of studio residues, hand-drilled Sheetrock panels proped against the wall that resemble architectural backdrops, and curious collages and assemblages - including images that have a familial significance.
Amanda Ross-Ho Installation, with "Inside Job #2," (2010), that appears to float on the gallery wall at MoMA
It is impossible not to mention the legacy of artists like Rauschenberg, Johns and especially Andy Warhol that is so evident at this vibrant show, who were major players in Pop Art who shattered the perception of art as "high-brow" and ivory tower. They were not looking to re-create an elitist easel painting set apart on a wall like an object of adulation or devotion, to be worshipped in a museum or a robber baron's palazzo. No onc would have grasped the irony more that they that their painting sell for outlandish sums of money today. The idea of separating art from commerical graphic work, or photography from film is just as irrelevant to the photographers in this show. Some have helped themselves to images from the real world; others are posed in the studio, or borrowed from popular culture and the movies of the past. There is no taboo here about moving from the page of a magazine, a film clip or newspaper to the photograph.New Photography 2010 is a thought-provoking fusion of influences and re-makes, each with a personal twist. The originality of material flagrantly "re-made" is an exciting demonstration of what can happen when new ideas make it through the barrage of stimuli flooding a world more packed with images and stimuli as has ever existed. It is a heady banquet of material for a new generation of photographers to feast on and create with.
The four photographers in this enjoyable show are so different. Each is inspired by the world around them while at the same time acknowledging their personal histories, and the creative geniuses of the past. It is wonderful to see a new generation tap into that rich heritage and legacy. It is the surest way of keeping it alive.
