Alternative Realities Exhibition - Laurence Miller Gallery

_______________________________________alternative realities

Alternative Realities examines the most recent developments in the current trend toward the fabrication of reality, whether it be landscape, architecture, consumerism, or the human body, through the assistance of digital technology. The tension between fiction and fact, real and imagined, objective and subjective, has been a subject for artists for many centuries. It is particularly relevant to the medium of photography, for although its ability to lie has been so well articulated in the post-modern era, we still cannot help ourselves, when examining a photograph, from investing in its apparent truthfulness and objectivity. This tension, or ambivalence, is at the heart of many of these contemporary artists' works. In truth, the new technology has given us a new reality.

AZIZ + CUCHER

Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher create images where content and process are always somehow theatrical. The Interiors featured in this exhibition are the artists' latest work - representing a point of departure into subjects that are more lyrical and poetic. The images are a result of a synthesis of architectural spaces and the human flesh. The merging of these elements lead us into a new perspective of our body's interior - a place to explore human emotion and our own mortality.

Both works are C-prints 40 x 30"

left: Interior # 2, 1998, # 4/7

right: Interior # 3, 1998, AP

PAUL BERGER

Paul Berger's Card-Plate series, composed of 30 x 22" IRIS prints, begins with the metaphor of the press sheet: each print has the dense and composite look of a pre-signature or pre-trimmed sheet codex. However, it is clear relatively soon that there is a basic structure, composed of 2D and 3D elements, that weaves a repetition and redundancy across a quasi narrative space: a cross between a mosaic and comic strip. This density and blending of temporal and spatial landscaping is a reflection of the implosion of all image making systems currently underway within our culture with no clear end in sight.

Card Plate # 7, 1999 (detail at right) Edition 20

PETER CAMPUS

Peter Campus has been refining the digital medium for over a decade. Within the context of a computer synthesized environment, his images touch on themes of the natural world. Campus' use of rich textures and life-like spatial relationships prevents us from questioning their validity at first glance. However, upon further observation, the viewer becomes aware of the two-dimensional background, similar to that of a computer desktop pattern.

top: Yum, 1995, 38 1/2 x 75 3/4", Ed.3 left: Decay, 1991, 20 x 24", Ed. 6 right: Wreath (for Hilda), 1991, Ed. 6

ALEXANDRE CASTONGUAY

Alexandre Castonguay is a French-Canadian artist who presents a typology of human expression and emotion. Upon closer inspection, his color photographs of individuals are in fact composites of several people, resulting in a cultural archetype. Through digital imaging technology, this series, Drawing the Passions, challenges the autonomy of the self by reducing various facial expressions, such as sadness, anger, and desire, to a system of constructed data. Raising the question, "Can individualism co-exist within a framework of modern technology?"

top left: Jalousie, 1997-98 top right: Estime, 1997-98 bottom left: Admiration, 1997-98 bottom right: Joie, 1997-98

GIACOMO COSTA

Orizzonte #30, 1999

Cibachrome 13 x 79", edition 3

Giacomo Costa, a native of Italy, constructs landscapes with monolithic structures that seem real, but are in fact entirely conceived within the computer. His use of a panoramic format and emphasis on the horizon, produce a feeling of endless space in which the viewer is the only inhabitant.

DENNIS FARBER

Dennis Farber is know for his mastery of photo-montage. His multiply exposed Polaroid images open a door to our understanding of childhood dreams. Farber's layering of imagery pulls from many visual sources, both his own photographs and appropriated material. Although his work often depicts our child-like thoughts and actions, one can sense the importance of their underlying humor or even provocative notions.

Game Boy, 1998 15 x 17 3/4" Durst Lambda Process Print # 1/15

MARGI GEERLINKS

The images that Margi Geerlinks creates are detached, yet touching. She is fascinated by the relationship between inside and outside the human body, by its vulnerability, memory and survival. Her latest pieces deal with the process of creation. The work can be seen as a critical pointer to the current debate on genetic manipulation, but her world is too idiosyncratic to want to join this debate, but instead offers an alternative: a world in which the basic principles of life are shown in an original new light.

left: Untitled (mother knitting baby),1997-98 39 x 29 1/2", Fujichrome, edition 6

right: Pinocchio, 1999 29 1/2 x 39", Fujichrome, edition 6

MAGGIE TAYLOR

Maggie Taylor, a Florida-based artist, composes digital images that are both whimsical and intriguing. Her latest work is a merging of classical studio portraits and Surrealist elements of fantasy through digital montage. Elements such as a mysterious falling egg or seashell dress are utilized to weave loose narratives that stay in our mind like a fragment of a dream.

Taylor's photographs are printed as 24 x 24" Iris prints on watercolor paper. Edition 40

top left: Not Yet, 1998 top right: A Little Reminder, 1999 bottom left: A Little Careless, 1999 bottom right: Philosopher's daughter, 2000

JEFF WEISS

Jeff Weiss is inventing new "pastoral landscapes." His large-scale color images are an ironic comment on the landscape put forth by artists since the 16th century. Utilizing digital manipulation of the image, Weiss is re-structuring reality -- dotting "his" utopian environment with every disaster imaginable. After viewing his work, one starts to recognize that these fictions are oddly similar to fact.

Print is Type -C on Fuji Crystal Archive approximately 50 x 68" and 30 x 40", editions 6

Multi-Use Area, 2000

Multi-Use Area, 2000 (detail)

ZHENG GUO GU

Zheng Guo Gu creates photo-based artworks heavily influenced by the emergence of western popular culture and commercialism in his country of China. For this body of work, he places negative film directly onto large pieces of photographic paper. The result could be compared to a store window or video screen. The images are a collection of western products; robots, dolls, fragments of advertising, foreign films and television. His constant stream of visual material reflects the essence of how we experience the contemporary world within the context of mass media.

Digital Image of the World War, 1998 (full view with two details)

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