Ryan McGinley
Helena, 2010.
Gelatin silver print. Courtesy of Agnes B., Paris, and Team, New York.
Stills
Curated by Kevin Moore and Nion McEvoy
26 Sept - 1 Nov 2014
Michael Lowe Gallery, Cincinnati
Artists included: Talia Chetrit, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Moyra Davey, Tacita Dean, Roe Ethridge, Robert Frank, Paul Graham, Ryan McGinley, Matthew Porter, Barbara Probst, Taryn Simon, John Stezaker, John Waters
Barbara Probst
Exposure #99: N.Y.C., 401 Broadway, 02.17.12, 6:38 p.m., 2012.
Ultrachrome print on cotton paper.
Courtesy of the artist and Murray Guy, New York.
As a complement to Screenings, Stills expands the dialogue between the still and the moving image from the perspective of still photography. Stills, presenting works by approximately ten contemporary artists, explores the idea of the photograph as an isolated instant in time. Artists engage different techniques to emphasize the “freeze frame” nature of photography. Moyra Davey (whose work also appears in Screenings) explores the serialization of images, presenting single images as meditations on a common theme. Daniel Gustav Cramer and Paul Graham create photographic story boards, assembling multiple images to suggest cinematic narrative. Multiple perspectives on a single moment may be seen in multi-panel works by Talia Chetrit and Barbara Probst, while Ryan McGinley and Matt Porter boil the moment down to a single, dramatically-staged stop-action frame. Finally, John Stezaker develops the rapid-fire slideshow to reveal the vast output of repetitive imagery in the world, and to call attention to our incessant absorption of this flow.
Stills explores the photograph as an essential component in the varied visual environments we inhabit from moment to moment. Each of the works exhibited approaches the seamless naturalism of the moving image, stopping short of that experience for a more studied, analytical rumination of our ever-changing world.