There is a gallery talk on this show today (or if you are reading this in the future there was)–Sunday, February 27 at 3 pm with Rachel and Trevor Reese of Fleisher/Ollman Gallery and Possible Press, a quarterly publication of artists’ writings. At Vox Populi.
If you
If you were to create a sculpture from a piece of paper you might fold it into a paper airplane. If you were to unfold the paper airplane you would have a piece of creased paper and we could have a fun debate about whether your piece of creased paper was still a sculpture or if it was once again just a piece of paper. If you went outside and went a little ways into some wilderness and took a picture of an epic sunset and then had it printed about the size of a poster and then you folded that into a paper airplane and then unfolded that paper airplane and hung it on the wall you would have “Sunset Airplane Wilderness Ranch”, a photograph by Letha Wilson, and we could have a fun debate about whether that was a photograph or a sculpture.
“Punch the Sky” in the back right corner gallery at Vox Populi holds eight works of art and using the artist’s website as a guide we could classify the works into two categories–photographs (2) and photo sculptures (6). All eight works hold common ground in the use of photography and not one of the “photographs” has been left to its own devices. Every picture is one of a landscape. There are no humans or signs of humans, just unblemished, full-color majestic landscapes that have been cut into, folded, woven, bent, or otherwise physically manipulated.
If you
If you google image search the words “landscape photography” you begin to understand the work of Letha Wilson. There is a lot of landscape photography and a lot of it looks good. You can even download quite a bit of it to use as wallpaper for your desktop. You could say that there is a proliferation of landscape photography and that we are really used to it being there and being beautiful. If you take landscape photography I’m sure this could get a little frustrating.
Then there are the reasons a person might take a picture of a great sunset or vast vista of undisturbed nature–usually to remember seeing it and how utterly awesome that experience was. This is frustrating as well, as the captured image never quite seems to communicate the empiricism of being there.
We have developed a problem in which we are using a medium that cannot properly convey our message to talk to an audience who can no longer hear the intelligence over the abundance of other dispatches. One way to view Letha’s exhibition is eight separate attempts in getting us to engage with some landscape photography we might not otherwise look at.
If you
There are a lot of good moments in “Punch the Sky”. One was looking at “Hug Grand Tetons” a photograph of the Grand Tetons that appears to have had the back of it coated in cement. The piece looks heavy and is suspended on the wall with a screw. The top two edges of the photograph have been pulled together and do appear to be almost arms giving the photograph a hug. The moment was discovering that you could look up and through the circular space created by the arms and that this opening created a wonderful play of artificial light on the photograph.
My favorite little while was with “Holey Rock Flaming Gorge (Vox)”, a landscape with a large rock formation dead center. If the photograph was just a photograph the rock would block our view of the sky behind it, but the photograph is more then a photograph and it is hung on a gallery wall that has been built over the original walls of the building. The original wall of the building had windows cut into it and the new dry wall that covers it does not. Ms. Wilson has cut into both her photograph and the wall behind it, removing from her image of a rock face half-a-quarter-sized holes that open up to the original window. We can now see through the image of the rock face to the sky behind, only the sky behind is no longer image of sky but actual sky. If you move closer and put your eye through one of the semi-circles you get a nice blast of cold air to your face and ample opportunity to spy on anything going on in the parking lot across the street.
SHOW REVIEWED: Letha Wilson “Punch the Sky” at Vox Populi
There is a gallery talk on this show today (or if you are reading this in the future there was)–Sunday, February 27 at 3 pm with Rachel and Trevor Reese of Fleisher/Ollman Gallery and Possible Press, a quarterly publication of artists’ writings. At Vox Populi.
If you
If you were to create a sculpture from a piece of paper you might fold it into a paper airplane. If you were to unfold the paper airplane you would have a piece of creased paper and we could have a fun debate about whether your piece of creased paper was still a sculpture or if it was once again just a piece of paper. If you went outside and went a little ways into some wilderness and took a picture of an epic sunset and then had it printed about the size of a poster and then you folded that into a paper airplane and then unfolded that paper airplane and hung it on the wall you would have “Sunset Airplane Wilderness Ranch”, a photograph by Letha Wilson, and we could have a fun debate about whether that was a photograph or a sculpture.
“Punch the Sky” in the back right corner gallery at Vox Populi holds eight works of art and using the artist’s website as a guide we could classify the works into two categories–photographs (2) and photo sculptures (6). All eight works hold common ground in the use of photography and not one of the “photographs” has been left to its own devices. Every picture is one of a landscape. There are no humans or signs of humans, just unblemished, full-color majestic landscapes that have been cut into, folded, woven, bent, or otherwise physically manipulated.
If you
If you google image search the words “landscape photography” you begin to understand the work of Letha Wilson. There is a lot of landscape photography and a lot of it looks good. You can even download quite a bit of it to use as wallpaper for your desktop. You could say that there is a proliferation of landscape photography and that we are really used to it being there and being beautiful. If you take landscape photography I’m sure this could get a little frustrating.
Then there are the reasons a person might take a picture of a great sunset or vast vista of undisturbed nature–usually to remember seeing it and how utterly awesome that experience was. This is frustrating as well, as the captured image never quite seems to communicate the empiricism of being there.
We have developed a problem in which we are using a medium that cannot properly convey our message to talk to an audience who can no longer hear the intelligence over the abundance of other dispatches. One way to view Letha’s exhibition is eight separate attempts in getting us to engage with some landscape photography we might not otherwise look at.
If you
There are a lot of good moments in “Punch the Sky”. One was looking at “Hug Grand Tetons” a photograph of the Grand Tetons that appears to have had the back of it coated in cement. The piece looks heavy and is suspended on the wall with a screw. The top two edges of the photograph have been pulled together and do appear to be almost arms giving the photograph a hug. The moment was discovering that you could look up and through the circular space created by the arms and that this opening created a wonderful play of artificial light on the photograph.
My favorite little while was with “Holey Rock Flaming Gorge (Vox)”, a landscape with a large rock formation dead center. If the photograph was just a photograph the rock would block our view of the sky behind it, but the photograph is more then a photograph and it is hung on a gallery wall that has been built over the original walls of the building. The original wall of the building had windows cut into it and the new dry wall that covers it does not. Ms. Wilson has cut into both her photograph and the wall behind it, removing from her image of a rock face half-a-quarter-sized holes that open up to the original window. We can now see through the image of the rock face to the sky behind, only the sky behind is no longer image of sky but actual sky. If you move closer and put your eye through one of the semi-circles you get a nice blast of cold air to your face and ample opportunity to spy on anything going on in the parking lot across the street.