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The Camera Obscured II: Mixed Media Photography
September 11 - October 10, 1998

Catherine Edelman Gallery

Gary Schneider: John
September 25 - November 8, 1998

Stephen Daiter Gallery

It's been a while since I've been to the Photographic Print Fair, now known as Photography Chicago '98. The last I heard of the Print Fair it was the Photographic Print Fair sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Photography; I thought this event had lapsed into oblivion, but thankfully, it has returned to Chicago, and I decided to celebrate the return of this great print-connoisseur event by visiting a couple of Chicago photographic galleries.

The Camera Obscured II: Mixed Media Photography at Catherine Edelman Gallery is in itself, well put together by bringing together four experienced photographers that use similar technique, themes, and style. These works together evoke a sense that one artist could have produced all the work at separate times in the artists' life. However, you know that the finished products are different enough to have been completed by four independent artists.

The Camera Obscured is an exercise in displaying similar works that pervade contemporary photography, animation, and music videos in style. Particularly, these works all look as though they are followers of Joel Peter Witkin or the Brothers Quay. All are surreal subjects presented as nightmares in a post-Orwellian landscape. If Hitler had won World War II, or Stalin had won the cold war, this is what life would look like. This style takes old things and makes them look pitiful and decrepit, or takes new things and makes them look old, pitiful and decrepit. Layers of dust, dirt and scratches blur everything so it looks shot through a lens buried in the ground for a century and barely wiped off before reusing. What makes these photographs "mixed media" is the inclusion of real objects placed over the photograph, or smeared burnt ochre or other paint process to add just the right touch of color. As times depressing, nonsensical poetry is scrawled on the bottom to look like a Freida Kahlo painting as in Deborah Luster's work.

The title of this show is a play on words. The Camera Obscured is a reference to Camera Obscura which is the name of the room that early artists, dating back to Greek and Roman times, would use to render with pinpoint precision and accurate perspective views of landscapes, cityscapes, or whatever struck their fancy. The artist would build a little shack, light-proof except for a tiny pinhole at one end that would cast the image of whatever the hole was pointed at onto the artist's canvas or drawing surface. The artist could then trace the image to render their drawing or painting. Camera is literally room in Italian.

The Camera Obscura became the basis for the photographic cameras we know and use today. Early photographers used the Camera Obscura or pinhole camera to make their images. The results of a pinhole camera are often soft-focused, and completely unfocused around the edges. With a great deal of practice and experimentation, a good photographer can utilize the shortcomings of a pinhole camera to create very artistic effects and a specific style.

Similarly, a photographer may use soft focus intentionally, such as Julia Margaret Cameron did as discussed in my review of her show at the Art Institute of Chicago.

What strikes me the most of these photographs, however, is that somewhere in the process of creating these photographs, something was lost, not expression so much as a purpose or a lightness of being. Innocence, perhaps. This is a bad thing, I think. What would happen to the photo by Dan Ragland entitled Tethered Boy, if we substituted a lighter, more permanent light green hue or bluish hue instead of the drab olive green hue for the base color? The photo could actually be a little 'happier' and less nightmarish. Suppose Dan Estabrook's work wasn't so dark?

These are stylistic choices the artists made, and these works are well accomplished and complete, except they are depressing. They don't offer a glimmer of hope. They present one side to a view and no chance for outs. This is something that early surrealists did not do. Behind the nightmare was always something else, perhaps slightly hidden from view, but it was still present, a positive image or vision. Early surrealism recognized that our dreams were bizarre nightmares where our fears often ruled, but where hope or good symbols nevertheless existed, though complacent insignificancies diminished in importance.

I would challenge these 'accomplished' photographers/artists to look beyond these boorish visions of reality and examine their subjects more closely. There are good points to be found with these subjects, and we don't have to try to repeat the grotesqueness of Joel Peter Witkin or the animated industrial rust of the Brothers Quay to be creative. What is the point of the poetry under the images of Deborah Luster's work except to add another element to a visual mess? It looks pretty, but it doesn't serve a purpose. This is nothing like Duane Michael's scrawls,which tell stories or offer insights. Deborah should stick to the visuals and perhaps let someone else write the text.

Dan Estabrook's work shows thought behind sound and movement, but the thought is empty and sinister. Elizabeth Ernst's work looks like outtakes from a nightmare-thriller movie. If you were decorating junior's room and junior was really into Nine Inch Nails you could conceivably purchase these works and display them. Unfortunately, other than a conversation piece, nothing here would look good in most homes--unless of course, you like feeling uneasy in your own home.

Separately, Gary Schneider's limited portfolio entitled 'John' at Stephen Daiter Gallery was also somewhat uninspiring. Gelatin silver and Platinum prints of small, dark views of Gary's partner's face, hands, and a couple other minor body parts (nothing too exciting, here; you can bring the children) make up the six or seven pieces in this show. One large piece made from 16 separate frames takes up one wall. The other prints are either older, large 36" x 40", or newer prints that are only 12" x 12".

Schneider himself prints for many well known and accomplished photographers. It is always interesting to see the printer's work; to see why they are not as well known as those they print for.

These photos don't invoke any response in me as a viewer. I just don't see what Gary is seeing. The images are moody, dark, dramatic, extremely well printed. However, there is nothing that is too original or inspiring to these photos that I haven't seen in most amateur photographer's portfolios.

What is particularly disturbing to me is the handful of prints printed using the Platinum printing process -- a highly archival process that many photographers use for its unusual light-reflective qualities that give photographs a certain depth and soft texture. I would describe it as soft, translucent or luminescent. What is disturbing about it is one normally would use this process for a negative or composition that is going to be enhanced by the process. A photographic printer wouldn't normally use an expensive, highly artistic process suchas this for just any image. The images that Gary chose to print, however, were unremarkable images, like most of his work in this oeuvre. The result is a platinum print that looks like it was printed on nice gallery-grade fiber-based gelatin silver paper, and no more; of a subject I have no reaction to whatsoever.

This is, however, a highly personal look at his subject. It is figurative. As outsiders, we only see the figurative study. Gary, in choosing a personal subject matter, no matter what the relationship is to the subject, created images that only he could enjoy. There's no reason why I would put the image of someone else's friend or companion on my wall without having some artistically redeeming quality to them -- if I wanted to do that, I'd leave in the fake photos that come with the frames when I purchase them.

The photos are not the only reason I gravitate to disinterest in these photos. The titles are the culprits too. I see a photo, look at the title, and it's titled simply "John." Because the photo is simplistic, I am led to the conclusion that there is something here I am missing. I do not know "John" so how is this a representation of who "John" is? I am not given any clues here, and I have to draw my own image.

"John in Sixteen Pieces" doesn't offer any clues, either. One may point to an object in one of the sixteen panels and describe its placement in relationship to some part of John's face or other body part and try to offer an explanation or rationalization. However, I'm more inclined to believe that these are things that the viewer is reading into the photos and the artist never intended these relationships to exist; or the relationships are tenuous at best, intended or not. The viewer should not have to guess at an artist's own personal symbolism, nor should the artist try to create a completely new symbolic reference out of thin air that would lead viewers into inferring tenuous relationships.

An artist needs to become well established and widely recognized before new symbols can be devised. These symbols will be symbols the artist will have built upon throughout their career, and will already become recognizable and established symbols by the time they are used in master executions of their work. "John" does not achieve master status in Gary Schneider's work, though it is a good direction. It is a very personal look at a person Gary knows well. It is bad for us to try to draw conclusions on this work and this limited portfolio, because we cannot possibly know what is behind these photos. In fact, the gallery has more of Gary Schneider's work in the show unrelated to "John" than is in the "John" portfolio.

Gary Schneider undoubtedly needs to print more of his own work, and perhaps shoot more film as well, before we see anything any more meaningful than this series. I would certainly like to see it when it is produced. Gary's work, though I cannot find anything terribly remarkable about it now, shows that there is something there that needs nurturing. Being a printer of other people's work, it is possible Gary spends too much time working and not enough time doing his own work. Unfortunately, I am not aware of what his work ratios are -- what Gary is doing now, or if he still mostly prints other people's work.

The Stephen Daiter Gallery is open Fridays and Saturdays or by appointment if you want to see 'John' for yourself. This show will be up until November 8.

--Richard Donagrandi