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REVIEW EDWARD WESTON: LIFE WORK / WILLIAM WEGMAN: FAMILY COMBINATIONS A pair of fascinating photography exhibitions for the price of one ●●●●● / ●●●●●
These two fascinating exhibitions by two very different photographers challenge John Steinbeck’s belief that cameras should be disparaged because ‘they are so much more sure than I am about everything.’ Weston was the natural, a pioneer and a comrade of the experimental
and the progressive. A peer to Ansel Adams and a respected contemporary (though they never met) of Man Ray, Weston’s work moved from soft focus (and soft core) pictorialism favoured in America and Europe between the wars to something far more detailed, empathetic, sculptural and ultimately so perverse and pure that it can be seen as a precursor for the aspic qualities of the commercial pack shot or a surreal tendency for rendering the natural anything but. Over two floors, a very good stab is made of encapsulating Weston’s five-
decade career. From early nudes to the Mexican travels (which were to have a profound influence on him) to his landscape, vegetable and portrait work. Weston’s output was phenomenal and to each new genre he brought diligence, precision and humour, whether he was expressing his inherent anarchistic sauciness in 1942’s ‘Civilian Defence (Nude with Gas Mask On)’, or showing the surrealists that if you want results you have to let nature get vaginal in the still stunning ‘Shell and Rock Arrangement’ (1931).
If Weston has pushed the boundaries then dog-obsessed photographer, filmmaker and artist William Wegman doesn’t even see the line. Wegman’s thing is to create compositions featuring his own Weimaraner dogs in a variety of costumes and poses. Ideas of exploitation quickly vanish as Wegman’s compassion and child-like humour emerges amidst the absurdia of many ridiculous scenarios. Wegman’s gift for comedy really comes into its own in his film work, the brilliant short segment films he made for Sesame Street aside. Wegman skewers the apple pie American dream with The Hardly Boys, a clean-cut tale of country pursuits and amateur detection featuring a cast of Weimaraner’s with human hands. It is the funniest thing you will see in any gallery, anywhere this festival. (Paul Dale) ■ City Art Gallery, 529 3993, until 24 Oct, £8 (£5).
REVIEW HITO STEYERL: IN FREE FALL Sophisticated film captures the global economic crisis ●●●●●
A theoretician, artist and filmmaker interested in documentary strategies in contemporary art, Hito Steyerl’s work focuses on the intersection between politics and aesthetics, specifically the status of images as they circulate globally. Steyerl is a hugely significant artist and a serious player in current thinking, and while her film ‘In Free Fall’ inspires hours, weeks, days of consideration, it escapes pretension and is instantly accessible. Comprising three sections, the dominant narrative details a history, or histories,
of one object, a Boeing 707-700 4X-JYI. High definition video pours over sun- drenched disused planes, wrecks and alienated parts at an airplane junkyard in the Californian desert, while a small DVD player sits vicariously on the sand amongst the scrap. This ghostly, post apocalyptic setting is a draw in itself: it is the screen within a screen, this prop-like inclusion, which casts the first aspersions to veracity and points the viewer in differing directions. Multifarious characters – a pilot, actor, historian, airport owner and in the self-
reflexive style of structuralist filmmaking, a cameraman and the artist herself – detail accounts of the object’s life. First acquired by film director Howard Hughes for TWA, it was then flown by the Israeli Air force before being blown up for blockbuster film Speed. With each clip and interview rewriting what has gone before, the film folds in on itself, but in a developing, not diminishing, manner. Steyerl seamlessly sews tropes of economy, spectacle and crash into this complex narrative that works to reveal the cycles of capitalism as it engulfs and morphs the ever-changing status of commodity. (Rosalie Doubal) ■ Collective, 220 1260, until 19 Sep (not Mon), free.
78 THE LIST 19–26 Aug 2010
REVIEW MAIRI GILLIES: NATURA SENSUS Hortisculpturist explores the relationship between art and plants ●●●●●
Mairi Gillies explores the interventionist nature of horticulture, which, as opposed to agriculture, isn’t always for harvesting, but rather for aesthetic, ownership and collection purposes. As a sculptor, or ‘hortisculpturist’, she works towards cultivating these commodities. In this exhibition 44 plant compositions have been mounted in wooden display cases. Each piece is structured in the same way: on the right is a dried cutting of a flower or plant, and on the left the artist has painted a plane of solid colour and made a pencil drawing of the exact same flower. These are displayed at eye level and, tightly packed, fill the circumference of the room. The multi-coloured planes in the cases reference the colour spectrum and run from lemon yellow to sap green. Parts of the leaves too have been painted in gold leaf, causing them to glitter as your eye catches a glimpse of their unexpected luminosity.
The plants themselves are objects of incredibly delicate beauty, but somehow
they lose their uniqueness among the plenitude: less might have been more. One object has been framed and this glass-fronted containment certainly adds to the preciousness of the artist’s intention. The traditional relationship of art and horticulture is clearly employed here, but the literal showcasing does not explore its full potential. The question is: what will she harvest next? (Talitha Kotzé) ■ Atticsalt, 225 2093, until 4 Sep (not Sun, Mon), free.