Abstract: According to website of Albright-Knox Gallery (Buffalo, New York), current exhibition, In Focus; Themes in Photography, combines nineteenth-century historic works with recent acquisitions of contemporary photography, and highlights Gallery's commitment to photographic medium for more than nine decades. This statement is quite simply an understatement, and many will note that in spite of its scope and quality show has gone unnoticed in regard to what it provides to Western New Yorkers. The show fills 13 rooms with works from Gallery's permanent collection, and reasserts Albright-Knox Gallery's traditional role and ambition to stand as finest museum in New York State outside of the City. The show adheres to no strict conventions, in best sense, all around. From way works were selected and then displayed, to range and number of artists represented, and variety of media illustrated, In Focus presents an extraordinary sampling of past and current practices in photography. From Alvin Langdon Coburn's platinum print to Adam Fuss's large photogram, from John Beech's painted photographs of dumpsters to Inigo Manglano-Ovalle's digital prints of DNA, show immerses photographically savvy into an extraordinary historical journey. Its variety, along with diversity of artists hailing from 13 different nationalities, will likewise interest amateur viewer. Although shaped by historical and thematic approaches, In Focus also addresses eminently contemporary issues. Sophie Ristelhueber's work presents scarred landscape of Kuwait after Desert Storm as a metaphor for human endeavors. In her aerial view, facts acquire distance and, paradoxically, perspective; spatial perspective is replaced by a philosophical one which defines photographer's work as seminal to current trend in conceptual documentary. Next to Ristelhueber's work, Bill Henrich's larger-than-life staged photograph pushed printing capabilities of 1980s--an achievement that is easier to accomplish today due to digital technology. Without a doubt this show has an appeal that reaches beyond photography aficionados. I went to see exhibit twice, and both times I witnessed children flocking to Jennifer Steinkamp's Dervish, a high definition computer projection of a tree that changed and 'twirled' with simulated change of seasons. In another room, a more mature audience stopped for a double-take in front of Andreas Gursky's, six-by-nine-foot Atlanta, 1996, while 20-30-year-olds couldn't get away from Cindy Sherman-Gillian Wearing-Nikki S. Lee room also titled Self Portraits and 'The Gaze'. …
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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