Thursday, February 9, 2012

Perspectives 2012: Anna Shteynshleyger, Greg Girard, Chien-Chi Chang at ICP

Perspectives 2012 at ICP features three emerging photographers: Anna Shteynshleyger, Greg Girard, and Chien-Chi Chang. Throughout the work of these artists are themes of home and displacement. While some of the work is too personal and inaccessible for the viewer to understand it's content, the most compelling work utilizes the photograph to capture people displaced from origins, real or imagined.

Chang’s work invites the viewer into the cramped urban life of several families and follows them as they relocate between different countries. Chang's photographs convey a feeling of confinement with tightly cropped edges. The captions, along with the use of juxtaposed images, indicate a difference in time and location.

Shteynshleyger’s work traces a community of Orthodox Jewish immigrants living in Maryland. Personal objects such as a box that would contain Etrog for the Sukkot holiday, and social practices otherwise invisible to the non-Orthodox community, confront the viewer as if s/he were a member of that community. At times the images become more intimate, positioning the viewer as voyeur.

The final group, by Girard, depicts life on US military bases throughout Asia. Girard’s images reveal a paradox implied throughout the entire exhibit. The displaced Americans seem doomed to forever try and recreate an imagined, ideal world that they left behind. The viewer is confronted with a reality caught between different worlds.

Perspectives 2012 runs until May 6th 2012.

2 comments:

  1. I think that something should be said about Shteynshleyger's work as more random and thrown together. To me, this artist's photos seemed a bit jumbled maybe because the veil of “home and displacement” is so broad. I am not sure that I agree with your comment that the entire exhibit implies a sadness. I am not sure if you mean specifically Girard's images, or the work of all three artists. Personally, Shteynshleyger's photographs were not melancholic. Perhaps you can clarify this.

    I think you did a good job with the format of this review, paying equal attention to all three artists. Although, I think the review needs a clarifying conclusion.

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  2. I applaud you for taking on the challenge of describing all three artists in so few words! I think you do a good job of giving an overriding impression of the works of each photographer. However, most likely because of the constraints, I don’t feel that there is enough supporting discussion for readers to understand how you drew these conclusions. For example, there isn’t much explanation of how some works were too personal or inaccessible. It may have been more beneficial to mention all three artists but to elaborate only on the photographer you felt was most or least successful.

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