Rockford Art Museum
Rockford, IL
815-968-2787
http://www.rockfordartmuseum.com/
Lifelike: Alternative Realities
in Recent Photography
May 11-July 22, 2001
Photography has long
been regarded as an instrument of truth, one which can capture the visible
world in all its minute texture and detail. Recent approaches to the medium,
however, challenge such assumptions. Utilizing dioramas, staged events and
digital wizardry, a number of contemporary artists are creating alternative
and often improved worlds in their photographic works. The fictional images
that result are given a surreal plausibility by the documentary power of
photography. We are left wondering if we can indeed believe what we see.
The
artists featured in Lifelike blend the real with the artificial in
surprising, sometimes disconcerting ways. Kim Keever's romantic vistas portray
a primeval world of sublime beauty. Ironically, this unspoiled paradise
exists only in the artist's New York studio, an imaginary universe fabricated
in an aquarium. Gregory Crewdson employs similar methods to create backyard
dramas of an alien nature while Hiroshi Sugimoto memorializes the passing
of the natural world in eerily beautiful photographs of taxidermied wildlife.
(left: Kim Keever, Early Rockies, Cibachrome, 1998. Courtesy
of DeChiara/Stewart Gallery, New York)
Constructing fables with both image and text, the work
of Nancy Davenport is doubly engaging. Her tragicomic Accident Prone
series documents in explicit detail the fate of an unlucky cast of characters
pitted against nature. A similar dark humor inflects British artist Gavin
Turk's absurd portrait Godot 
and Ken Fandell's faked photos of UFOs. Of a more
sinister appeal are Keith Cottingham's fictitious portraits of idealized
youths. Entirely computer generated, these perfect figures stare at us with
vacant eyes, serving as chilling reminders of both the allure and the consequences
of a new age of genetic engineering. Biotechnology, artificial intelligence,
virtual media and digital manipulation have already begun to alter our perception
of the natural world. Lifelike vividly illustrates the human desire
to re-invent nature and our willingness to accept the simulation as its
substitute. (left: Keith Cottingham, Double, digitally constructed
photograph, 1993. Courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York.)
Read more about the Rockford
Art Museum in Resource Library Magazine
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line
to see enlargements.
This page was originally published in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information. rev. 5/28/11
Search Resource
Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2011 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
The
artists featured in Lifelike blend the real with the artificial in
surprising, sometimes disconcerting ways. Kim Keever's romantic vistas portray
a primeval world of sublime beauty. Ironically, this unspoiled paradise
exists only in the artist's New York studio, an imaginary universe fabricated
in an aquarium. Gregory Crewdson employs similar methods to create backyard
dramas of an alien nature while Hiroshi Sugimoto memorializes the passing
of the natural world in eerily beautiful photographs of taxidermied wildlife.
(left: Kim Keever, Early Rockies, Cibachrome, 1998. Courtesy
of DeChiara/Stewart Gallery, New York)