daily - squarespace · wife, the family dog etc.), his pictures feel like they have been seen...
TRANSCRIPT
Scott Alaric: What We Conjure @Kristen Lorello CC LLECTOR DAILY
By Lor~ng Knoblauch (https:llcollectordaily.comlauthorllorinq-knoblauch/) I In Gallerjes (https:l/collectordaily.comlcategorv lgallenes/) I June 22,2014
JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 black and white photographs, framed in white and unmattted, and hung
against white walls in the small single room gallery space. All of the works are archival pigment prints
mounted to rag board, made between 2011 and 2013. Physical dimensions are either 12x15 (in editions of 5)
or 19x24 (in editions of 3 ). This is the photographer's first solo show in New York. (Installation shots below.)
Comments/Context: As a general rule, photography doesn't do so well with the imaginary. Stand two kids
in the yard with sticks in their hands, and in their minds, they might be wizards, or knights, or princesses, or
ninjas, but from the camera's indifferent perspective, they tend to be kids in the yard with sticks in their
hands. That's what makes Scott Alario's recent photographs so unusual; they capture the engrossing interior
magic of childhood imagination with surprising fidelity, even when the props are improvised.
Regardless ofwhether the central subject of his photographs is his daughter or someone else (himself, his
wife, the family dog etc.), his pictures feel like they have been seen through the eyes of the child. Mom wears
a head lamp and hold up a plastic ball in the backyard darkness- and we see an astonishing shining moon.
Plastic Playmobil toys float on the still surface of the unused hot tub- and we see a kayaking adventure with
plenty of danger. The daughter stands atop a stack of piled up deck furniture wearing a paper mask and
engulfed in billowing fog-maker fog- and we see some kind of triumphant primordial ritual. Even washing
the dishes with Dad can be transformed into something fun if they're wearing matching aprons and she's on
his shoulders.
Part of the magic Alario is conjuring up comes from his use of multiple exposures and sandwiched negatives.
Several versions of his young daughter twirl in the darkness wearing a sparkly cape, the stars overhead
multiplied into layers of pinprick brightness. A handful ofv-neck t-shirts hang on a clothesline, alternately
illuminated by Alario's headlamp. The dog digs in the mud for a buried white Frisbee in the glare of car
headlights, echoing itself and decorated with sparkles. And a nighttime cuddle under the warmth of a
blanket becomes a covering of brilliant cosmic light. Each scene is the starting point for a visual fairy tale, a
creative pantomime open for fanciful interpretation.
Perhaps due to the young age of his daughter, Alario's photographs seem more Meatyard than Mann; the
innocence is still fresh and open, the ideas still dreamy and participatory. Until she gets older, there's still
plenty of castle building to do.
Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The 12x15 prints range between $800 and
$1000, while the 19x24 prints range between $1200 and $1500, both ratcheting up based on the place in the
edition. Alario's work has not yet reached the secondary markets, so gallery retail remains the best/only 3 of 7 . c h ll . d. £ ll . 6/25/14, 5:001 optiOn tort ose co ectors mtereste m o owmg up.
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In Progress Wednesday, June 11, 2014 | By Krystal Grow | Add a Comment
Fatherhood and Folklore: Behind ScottAlario’s Photographic Fables
Scott Alario—Courtesy Kristen Lorello New York
Father Fort, 2010
There’s something magical about becoming a parent and entering a mysterious new territory full ofunforeseeable challenges and unparalleled joys. Many photographers, meanwhile – constantly peering throughthe lens in search of answers — maintain a fraught relationship with the very idea of mystery, alternately actingas the spinner of tall tales or the destroyer of fantasy.
Photographer Scott Alario became a father in 2008 when his wife, the sculptor, seamstress and poetMarguerite Keyes gave birth to their daughter, Elska, who quickly became the centerpiece of his work. Drawingfrom his favorite fables and a longing to create a utopia for Elska to inhabit, he began staging photos blendingtogether the tradition of family photographs with a whimsical fairy-tale world he was encountering through theeyes of his first child.
Now almost six years old, Elska has become a pivotal contributor to her father’s creative process, and the work,Alario tells TIME, reflects that evolution.
“There’s a photo of Elska following Marguerite down a path in the woods, and I just sort of plopped her downthere like she was this prop or this doll while I set up my camera,” Alario says. “But now, as she’s startedmoving more, it’s physically harder to capture her on slow film. Or sometimes she’ll just say, ‘No,’ and that’sreally changing things.”
As an undergraduate student at Massachusetts College of Art from 2002-2006, Alario learned from NicholasNixon, Abelardo Morell and Barbara Bostworth; in fact, he still uses a 4×5 camera, to which he was introduced
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at MassArt, for the majority of his work. The conflict between capturing an often uncontrollable subjectthrough a process he can control to the finest detail, is part of a larger duality in his work, one that blursboundaries between subject and author, darkness and humor, documentary and fantasy.
“I’m always thinking in binaries, like good and evil playing itself out, and how kids are always on the verge ofbeing these crazy, wild things and tame, structured things,” Alario explains. “There’s always this push and pullbetween us. In some ways it’s a documentary of my family, but in other ways the family becomes thesesurrogate characters for a story that’s perhaps more universal.”
Alario says that lately, he’s turned to a more documentary approach, and has had to loosen up and let Elska,increasingly aware of the camera’s presence and growing into her role as a performer, take charge.
“If I were smarter, I’d probably trust her even more,” he says. “She functions on instinct and passion, and it’sso clear. She’s a ham when she’s performing. She knows how badly I want to get a shot sometimes, so she playswith me. Eventually I can see having to bribe her to get photographs of her. There’s going to have to be anexchange. I’m going to have to make it worth her while.”
Scott Alario is a photographer, father of two and visiting professor at Alfred University in Alfred, NewYork. His first solo show in New York is on display at the Kristen Lorello gallery through July 18.
Krystal Grow is a contributor to TIME LightBox. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @kgreyscale
Related Topics: Abelardo Morell, Barbara Bostworth, fairy tales, family photography, Father's Day, folklore, MassArt, NicholasNixon, Providence, Rhode Island, RISD
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3 of 3 6/11/14, 1:24 PMKristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
DON/DEANDon/Dean is a blog founded and operated by Cole Don Kelley and Jessica Dean Camp that is dedicated
to showcasing an exciting photographer bi-weekly with images, video and a personalized interview.Please come back every other Sunday for a new post. Questions, comments and submissions can be
sent to [email protected]. Due to the high volume of submissions, only people who areselected will get a response. Thanks for understanding.
Scott Alario
Scott Alario is a photographer based out of Rhode Island who recently received his MFA fromthe Rhode Island School of Design.
2013.07.28
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Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Is piss a microcosm? What is significant about it?
Pee definitely holds value in my images. It’s a connection to our corporeality, a visceralreminder of basic functions. It’s inherently real, and lacks beauty, though I’ve found it tomake beautiful marks. For me it’s also a technique of balance; I’m constantly battling kitsch(in an overly sentimental or cutesy sense) in my image making, and I appreciate the levitythat piss can bring. Sometimes when your whole house smells like a hamster cage you justhave to laugh. James Joyce writes in the first pages of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:“When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on the oilsheet. Thathad the queer smell.” This pee memory sets the tone and perspective for that work, ascoming from the point of view or memory of a child.
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Have you ever felt as if your pictures are tricks that your are playing?
Pictures are all tricks. But mine can certainly be extra tricky at times. As fun as they are tomake, I’m not as interested in playing tricks as I am in suspending belief for slightly longerthan normal, getting a viewer to stay on a picture, or to create a mood, a feeling, or a senseof place or time. I’m very excited by having a sense of humor in the images, and I work onnot taking myself too seriously, which I have tendency of.
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
How does having children change your perspective on artwork?
Having children has increased the level of chaos in my life, but also the joy/purpose, sogreatly. I think in that being true, my art practice has taken on a different significance, andhas become more about finding a balance (with my family and my own desires to makework), and appreciating everything I’ve got so much. Having a child makes me love art moredeeply, and I see that it can be a wonderful thing to teach through.
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Can you talk about your photography techniques and what they conjure?
My techniques are secret! No, not really secret, just overly simple. I shoot an 8x10” viewcamera, and make black and white negatives. I’m kind of into nerding about this stuff, butalso try to play it cool. I scan the negatives and print digitally, or occasionally make analogprints back in the darkroom. My process is somewhat counter intuitive, in that the camera isheavy-ish and my subjects move quickly. Sometimes I make multiple exposures, or longones, that cause blur, or I experiment with poking holes in things. My process is as muchpre-planned as it is intuitive and off the cuff. I often get lucky. I hope for that. For me, usinga variety of methods of image making keeps me excited to see the results, and perhapsconceptually conjures feelings and moods of something beyond what we’re capable ofexperiencing in reality. I’m looking for something significant, in a spiritual way, out of theeveryday.
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
From the beginning of time to the present and everything beyond, where does your daughterfit?
My daughter is connected to it all, in some way, as we all are. When she was born, I wasshocked by how familiar she seemed. Clearly, she was a connection to the past, immediateand distant, as well as my own connection to an imagined future. As a character in myimages, I like imagining my daughter as being able to stop time all together.
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
How do you believe time passes? how does is show in your work?
I’m curious about our cultural notions of time as being linear, one that adheres to anindividualistic perspective, a single life span, which acts as a forward moving thing, almostdisregarding the past for the future, (and potentially disregards one another). Ideally I’d liketo think of time as being circular, and related to natural cycles, and rhythms. I find comfortin this thought, though obviously time passes quite straightly for me, and quickly. I likethinking about slowing down, and from my daughter’s perspective, I can see time beautifullydrag, while for me, the days have never felt shorter. In my images, I use stars to suggest amuch longer sense of time, one that will see us come and go, and existed prior,undoubtably.
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Ask yourself a question and respond.
What’s at stake?
This is kind of a joke question, in that it’s a question that got asked so frequently while I wasat school; everything made needed to be defended against some essential reason for havingmade it. Why did we make it and what are we risking to do so? I of course don’t disagree withhaving significant purpose to one’s art making, and serious commitment, though overlyreflecting on what we risk to do so can bungle things. At times we make without knowingwhy, or without risking more than time, and in these pursuits we’re guided toward amazingnew things. For me, there’s always been a lot at stake, though. Mostly, I’m risking the goodwill of my family. I ask a lot, take a lot, and am given so much in return. And for better orworse, we’re in it for the long haul.
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
www.scottalario.com
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Beyond Two Dimensions: InstallingPhotographyby Holly Shen Chaves on July 19, 2013
Viewers looking through Sophie Barbasch’s artists books from the “Training to Be a Girl” series.(photograph by the author for Hyperallergic)
In addition to supplying critics with fodder for the talent-scout game, MFAshows can also be useful barometers of change, signaling new approachesto a familiar medium. So the fact that four out of six graduates from thePhotography MFA program at RISD incorporated a variety of media likeKristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
sculpture, video, artist books, and performance art in their thesis exhibitionsays a lot about the mercurial role of photography in contemporary art.
On view at ClampArt is work by Scott Alario, Sophie Barbasch, KevinBarton, Rob MacInnis, Keith Yahrling, and Ji Yeo, who are part of a growingtrend of artists approaching photography as a component of a largerprocess. Photographs return as a documentary tool for parsing new lines ofinquiry, as they mine collections or archives of information to uncoverquestions about identity, gender, and personal narrative. These graduateshave more in common with late 1960s conceptualists and less with artistslike Jeff Wall, Wolfgang Tillmans, or Andreas Gursky who popularized theoversized approach to photography in the 1990s.
Sophie Barbasch. “Goodnight call” (2013), telephoneinstallation
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Sophie Barbasch, intrigued by the interchangeability of photographic and textual fragments thatlurk in dark corners of the Internet, presented a series of works based on propositions shesolicited via Craigslist. In “Goodnight Call,” 2013 viewers listen to messages from men who wereasked to leave Barbasch a voicemail pretending to be longtime lovers saying goodnight. On ashelf nearby are several artist books filled with email printouts from ads that ask questions like“What do you do about heartbreak?” or “Tell me why I am a good girl.” The collection of maleresponses is generic yet personal, familiar yet anonymous, tragic but hilarious; they revealgestures informed by gender. None of these works include Barbasch’s photographs, though shesees a correspondence between text and image. “The text layouts are like images floating withouta frame, a disembodied fragment with no context,” she explained to Hyperallergic, “Like aphotograph, it relates to a promise and subsequent denial of clarity.”
Another artist following a similar archival impulse is Kevin Barton, who spent the last severalyears acquiring prints by mid-century commercial portrait photographer Norman Schroth,amassing nearly all of Scroth’s oeuvre — nearly 12,000 images — from eBay and sorting them byage, gender and physical likeness. Barton then piled several negatives of similar faces and posesto create four fictitious portraits that obscure myriad characteristics into a single, idealistic “centraltype” common in the 1940s and 50s. The black and white prints are frenetic, ghostly reminders ofa society’s effort to mainstream identity into normative roles of the nuclear family.
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Kevin Barton, “Beautiful Child” (2013), inkjet print (edition of five)
Rob MacInnis readily admitted that he “… used to take photographs. Now it’s mostly installationand video installation.” What hasn’t changed, however, is his interest in the representation ofnature. Initially, MacInnis explored the photograph as a communication device capable ofmitigating our reception of nature in a series of portraits of farm animals that relied on techniquesusually reserved for high fashion photography. In his video “Tree Surround,” MacInnis strappedover thirty speakers facing inwards to a tree, and blasted a mathematical transposition of the BigBang theory by scientist John G. Cramer at full volume. The video is like a photograph in that itimposes a calculated depiction of nature upon the viewer. “I was thinking about how to get peopleKristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
to experience something ritualistic between technology and nature,” MacInnis explained, adding“It’s an absurdist attempt to establish dialogue between two opposite representations of nature.”
Scott Alario, “Rock Candy Wand” (2013),resin and wood
Scott Alario’s gelatin silver prints document the imaginative antics of his four-year-old daughter.Recently, he began producing small sculptures — fetish objects — to enhance these narratives,like “Rock Candy Wand,” 2013, a small resin and wood symbol of the sweet childhood power tobelieve what you make. Alario translates the performance between the camera and subject into apart-autobiographical part-fictional folk tale. While individually the pictures border on cloying,together they are lyrical and beautiful.
Five photographs by Keith Yarling that document a pilgrimage through America’s original thirteencolonies, intended to shed light on individual and collective freedom in the US, aren’t assuccessful. Shots of historically charged sites — “St. Michael’s Cemetary” and “Battle of ForWashington,” for example — intentionally lack warmth, but the melodramatic series doesn’tmanage to transcend the sum of its cold and detached parts.
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Keith Yahrling, St. Michael’s Cemetery, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. January 12, 2013.
Ji Yeo presents two large portraits of woman with distorted notions of beauty and fame, and avideo confessional of sufferer of a severe eating disorder. In this case, the added video isgratuitous; the elderly and emaciated image of “Joanna,” is not unambiguous. And unlikeMacInnis’ video it doesn’t add much to the conversation about the role of photography.
Kristen Lorello 195 Chrystie Street #600A NY NY 10003 tel. 212 614 7057 [email protected] www.kristenlorello.com
Ji Yeo, “Joanna” (2012), archival inkjet print(Edition of 3)
For a long time, photography was not considered a medium worthy of fine art; RISD onlyimplemented its program in 1963. But it became popular with artists and museums alongside therise of digital production and the Internet. RISD now receives around 200 applications yearly, ofwhich only six or seven are offered spots in the program. Recently, Douglas Eklund, aphotography curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art told the New York Times, “Photographyhas always been on a long road. But now it’s out of the ghetto.” That may be true, but as theRISD show demonstrates (and the recent ICP Triennial corroborates) artists are revisiting theoriginal experimentations and uses that arose from photography’s humble beginnings. It’s arefreshing change most welcome after an era of monumental and medium-specific photography.
The 2013 RISD Photography MFA group show runs through tomorrow, July 20, at ClampArt(531 West 25th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan).
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Scott Alario, Angela Ruo, andDavid Wojnarowicz at AS220Realism and rituals
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DREAMLIKE A detail of Alario'sBrave Elska.
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Two years ago, when his daughter Elska was born, Scott Alario ofProvidence began making her the star of a series of photos he calls OurFable. "I wanted to tell her stories. I wanted to pass something down toher," he says. "It's my attempt to build a folk tale for my daughter."
Together with his partner and Elska's mother Marguerite, they mixed play,costumes, and some special effects that he records with a large formatcamera. On view at AS220's Main Gallery (115 Empire Street,Providence, through January 29), the black-and-white digital prints blendclear-eyed realism with curious dreamlike rituals.
Brave Elska uses a double exposure tomake it look like the big-eyed little girlis standing in tall grass hiding her facewith her arms. Marguerite and Elska,Carr Pond depicts mom sitting on arock at the edge of a pond, with herfeet in the water, nursing a nakedElska. The traditional pose rhymes withclassic imagery from Madonna-and-childs to Dorothea Lange's Depressionphoto of a migrant mother.Alario draws some inspiration fromethnographic photos of Nordic andnomadic cultures to create furcostumes, tents, or earth lodges. Theconstructions are impressive, but they
are a more familiar vocabulary and lessen the dreamy spell he achieveselsewhere, like a photo of baby Elka crawling after Marguerite, who isalso crawling up a wooded path. Or Tea Party in Father Fort, whichshows the little girl sitting with lantern in a backyard under makeshift tent,which upon closer inspection reveals itself as a man under a sheetsupporting himself on his hands and feet. It might bring to mind Nut, theEgyptian goddesses who arches over the earth to form the vault of theheavens, or simply the magically mundane mix of play and learning, riskand worry and protective embrace that bond parents and children.
Also on view in AS220's Main Gallery are abstract oil paintings by AngelaRuo of Providence. Body II features bloody horizontal scratches andcrusty red bumps that bring to mind berries or scabs. The paintings havea visceral charge with all the reds that drip down like blood, but they feeltoo pat. The painting Diversity stands out with its pale turquoise and rustybrowns that look like billowing clouds softly piled one atop the next. Thedifference between Diversity and the other paintings is its air of mystery.
In the gallery's front window, AS220 is screening the late New York artistDavid Wojnarowicz's Fire In My Belly and will host "QueerRepresentation and Resistance as Acts of Justice Symposium" onJanuary 29 and 30. Art institutions across the country have beenpresenting the film as a free speech protest since the Smithsonianremoved it from "Hide/Seek," a historical exhibit of gay portraiture at theNational Portrait Gallery, in November under pressure from Republicanlegislators and the conservative Catholic League in New York becausethey were offended by brief footage of ants crawling across a crucifix.Catholic League president Bill Donohue called it "hate speech . . . Thecreator of this 'masterpiece' video is dead of AIDS. But he did not diewithout blaming society for his self-destructive behavior."
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Exposure: 7 Emerging PhotographersBy: Evan Smith
How do we define an “emerging” artist? The trend in recent exhibitions and prizes is to feature artists exclusively under thirty-five.But as they say, age is only a number, and not all artists new to their discipline, their region, or to recognition are young. Are theythose artists who are pioneering emerging trends or ideas in their chosen medium? Novelty does not always mean quality. Emergenceis a nebulous concept, but in searching for the artists for this feature, it was most easily attached to a certain feeling, an immediatereaction of “Why haven’t I seen this work before?” New England is composed of many creative enclaves, and it’s easy for new andexciting work to slip through the cracks. The seven photographers on the following pages are those who deserve attention outsidetheir respective networks, and we look forward to watching their continued ascent into the expanded field.
They range from recently graduated to midcareer. Some are pushing the limits of what is even considered photography, while othersare taking traditional methods to a new level. All have recently been recognized locally or nationally for creating new and excitingwork in their discipline. This might be the first time you’ve seen their work, but it surely won’t be the last.
TARA SELLIOSMassachusetts
Tara Sellios of Boston has managed, in her relatively shortcareer, to produce a profoundly clear and affecting body ofwork, to much critical recognition. Born in 1987, Selliosmay indeed be the youngest artist profiled in this feature(and perhaps in the entire issue). Since graduating from theArt Institute of Boston as an undergraduate last year, she hasbeen lauded by the photographic community locally andnationally for her intricately plotted, viscerally powerful stilllifes. Using a large format camera, Sellios creates imagesthat speak to a long tradition of memento mori in still life,juxtaposing bounty and excess with a grim reminder ofmortality.
Much like the still lifes in oil of the Northern Renaissanceand baroque periods, Sellios works with food and placesettings, but these images are no soft ornament. Animalviscera, dead fish, bones, spilled wine (or possibly blood)are draped over pure white tablecloths, piled onto silverplates and poured into glasses and decanters. The result is at
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plates and poured into glasses and decanters. The result is atonce pleasing in its vibrancy and deeply unsettling. Thesenightmare table settings suggest not only the slow decay ofexcess inherited from traditional memento mori, but also avery modern take on the line between sensuality andrestraint. In moving the eye across her compositions, theviewer is at turns drawn in by the sumptuousness of texturesand colors, and repelled by the content itself. In one imagefrom the series Lessons of Impermanence, two hands lay ona white tablecloth, a woman’s on top of a man’s, bothseemingly reaching for a blood red haunch of meat thatstains the cloth a ruddy brown. The tension in both thegesture and composition is alarming.
Seven Evil Thoughts, a series of still lifes stretched across six panels of individual photographs, suggests in its title a reflection onguilt and redemption. But there is nothing apologetic about these images. Sellios is aware of the excesses in her works, and revels inthem. After the initial shock wears off, images that originally seemed confrontational, even predatory in their violence, reveal asecond nature that is introspective but no less self-assured. At once brutally direct and wickedly subtle, this young artist is one towatch carefully. Visit www.tarasellios.com to see more of her work.
JONATHAN GITELSONVermont
“Photography was my first love and is the medium that Ihave both studied and that I teach; however, I identifymyself more as an artist than as a photographer. I mean bythis that my work is previsualized conceptually and thatoftentimes photography is my means of illustrating an ideaor documenting a performance.”
Jonathan Gitelson of Brattleboro combines photographswith handwritten notes and itineraries, graphs, and comic-book style narrative panels. These are employed to describe,in painstaking detail, seemingly mundane exercises andproblems: a secret handshake with a friend or finding the“sweet spot” where a train car is most likely to open itsdoors at the platform. It’s clear from these projects that theartist is always working, always receptive to theidiosyncrasies of routine that creep into his artwork. In theCar Project, Gitelson collected hundreds of flyers fromnearby nightclubs and theaters that were strewn across thegutters and windshields of his neighborhood. He then madea car cover patchworked with the flyers, photographing thetitular vehicle in front of the venues.
Gitelson takes ownership of those things that can often be alienating: the morning commute, searching the classified section in vainfor that dream job, a stolen garbage can. Gitelson carefully records and documents them, not to reach any real conclusion, but to feelhimself as part of the process, and not a passive spectator. Find him at www.thegit.net.
MEGGAN GOULDMaine
Brunswick-based artist Meggan Gould’s background is bothinternational and based in New England, having studiedphotography at RISD and UMass Dartmouth, as well as theParis Photographic Institute. For the past five years, she hastaught at Bowdoin College, and the academic setting hasmade its way into her photographic work, specifically in herquiet images of classroom blackboards. This is part of her
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quiet images of classroom blackboards. This is part of herSurface Tension project, composed of photographic seriesthat focus on how we frame and organize visualinformation. Other sets in the project include Verso, whichlooks at the backs of photographs, and Screenshots,photographs of the virtual space of computer desktops.Gould’s focus is on the information we are most likely tooverlook, which she believes can tell us the most about asubject. Verso suggests that the notes, dates, and weatheringon the back of a photograph can tell us as much about itshistory as the image itself; and Screenshots posits that acomputer desktop, as intimate and commonplace as one’sbedroom, can shed light on the owner’s personality. Mostrecently, Gould’s attention has been aimed at the camera itself. In Viewfinders, she photographs the technical information one seeswhen looking through various cameras. Oftentimes what is most important in Gould’s images is the peripheral information—thatwhich exists outside of the frame in question, or the frame itself. See these and other series online at www.meggangould.net.
KEVIN VAN AELSTConnecticut
In the age of digital production, we have becomeincreasingly distrustful of the authenticity of the image.Nearly anything can be faked, manipulated, orphotoshopped, and if an image seems impossible, it’s easierto assume that it is. Kevin Van Aelst’s photographschallenge the line between fantasy and reality. Simple butimaginative, Van Aelst’s images are carefully constructedtableaux of everyday materials made extraordinary, andwithout the aid of digital manipulation.
These carefully planned images have an effortless quality tothem. They bring up the kind of play found in arranging ameal to make a face on the plate, or drawing with one’sfinger on a frosted windowpane. Van Aelst takes theseimpulses to an extreme. He has a penchant for visual punsthat, while seemingly simple, are carefully planned andpainstakingly constructed. The sculptural impulse isconstantly at play in his work.
Van Aelst has developed a strong following outside of theart world on image sharing and microblogging sites liketumblr, where his images are published and republishedhundreds of times over, but often without crediting theartist. Van Aelst is not diminished by this. “Being put ontumblr and blog sites is a testament to images being interesting on the surface,” says the artist. “While being placed on a gallery wallrequires there to be a bit more—for an image to work on different levels and stand up to deeper attention and thought. I'd like to thinkthat the work can be suitable for both venues.” For more of his work, visit www.kevinvanaelst.com.
STEPHANIE CARDONMassachusetts
This Boston-based artist uses photography as her primarytool, but also employs text, video, sound, and sculpturalinstallation. Raised in a bilingual household in France, witha background in history and literature from the Universityof Oxford, language is an essential element in her work,and many of her projects are inspired by literature.
Past works include Landor’s Cottage Footnoted, amultidisciplinary project based on one of Edgar Allan Poe’sfinal stories. Here Cardon reproduced the text in full,combining it with her obsessively detailed footnotes, color-coded classification of the original text, and photographs ofthe story’s location. In Distal Zone, she reproduces virtualrenderings of the Parisian cityscape as hazy bluecyanotypes. Stamped, addressed, and sent through the mailas postcards, the small images are displayed with poeticwall text that wraps around the gallery space. Cardoncombines traditional and new processes, found and invented text, and fact and fiction to create open-ended, challenging narratives.
However her most recent work, Above Within Below, speaks to a more intuitive approach. A collaboration with sound artist Marc
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However her most recent work, Above Within Below, speaks to a more intuitive approach. A collaboration with sound artist MarcMcNulty, the project is a sound installation and photographic series that attempts to communicate a sense of anxiety without definitesource. It’s a departure for an artist for whom source material is so tangible, even weighty. To see more of her work, visitwww.stephaniecardon.com.
SCOTT ALARIORhode Island
Scott Alario of Providence creates dreamy black-and-whiteimages, illustrations to an unwritten fairy tale. Alario’s workhas always had a tinge of storybook naiveté, which onlyincreased with the birth of his daughter Elska. Our Fable isa collaboration with his wife Marguerite Keyes (also anarist; the couple met while at MassArt) that began as aproject for and about Alario’s family, as a way ofsimultaneously inventing and documenting the half-remembered, half-dreamt period of early childhood. A senseof nostalgia in reverse, a knowledge of the process of futurememories being forged, permeates the series. In onephotograph, Alario, draped in a white cloth, bends over hisdaughter like a kind of human pup tent, shielding her fromthe impenetrably dark woods around them. Alario is hardlyvisible at first, but his daughter is lit sharply by the lanternplaced next to her, her face blurred as if turning to theviewer. We have the sense that we too are watching overher, invisible but silently acknowledged. In anotherphotograph from the series, a figure (possibly Marguerite)dons a white animal mask lined with fur and feathers. Theplayfulness of the image is cut by the intensity of themasked figure’s gaze. Many of the images are tinged withthe uncanny, a sense of something slightly amiss, similar toSally Mann’s photographs of children. Much of the series isdominated by white tones, soft focus, and double exposures,suggesting those pictures embedded in the mind earlier thanmemory.
Alario also has a deep connection to Iceland, where he livedfor over a year, immersing himself in Reykjavik’s art andmusic scene and drawing inspiration from the otherworldlylandscape of the island country. You can find more of his work at www.scottalario.com.
GLEN SCHEFFERNew Hampshire
Glen Scheffer photographs social spaces: libraries,museums, and performance venues, curiously devoid ofpeople. Despite their relative quiet and straightforwardcompositions, the images still retain a kind of maximalism,lent by the vastly detailed, sometimes chaotic spaces. Thesubject matter, treated with this mixture of austerity andvividness, calls to mind the work of Candida Höfer orThomas Struth. Some of the most interesting images arespaces not typically seen by the public: the beat-upbackstage waiting area of a rock club or a model shipgallery mid-installation, busy with scaffolding and packingcrates.
Other ongoing series include formal studies of the artist’srecord collection. These tonally subtle black-and-whiteimages treat the stacks of vinyl like celebrated art objects.Arranged in columns or piled and twisted into helixes, thearrangements are reminiscent of Hiroshi Sugimoto’sphotographs of seminal modernist sculptures. More of his
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photographs of seminal modernist sculptures. More of hiswork can be seen at www.glenscheffer.com.
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Evan Smith is a writer, curator and artist based in Boston. He is the exhibitions coordinator at Axiom Center for New andExperimental Media in Boston, and editorial assistant for ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art.
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