Photography’s ability to capture yet simultaneously distort the essence of different objects is the central thesis of Roy McMakin’s exhibition at Quint Gallery. His fifth exhibition is stripped down to two found tables — guess what colors — and select collaged photographs that reexamine the relationship between object and lens. McMakin has digitalized the collage method into a new system in which over 100 photographs comprise a single table. This recomposition of shots eliminates the three-point perspective inherent in single frame photographs, so that solely perfect lines comprise the image. His work attempts to construct a new photographic perspective, and questions ways the camera shapes our perceptions.
Perception also went under the microscope at the turn of the century, when artists began to reexamine the role of light in images and image construction. Their exploration took place outside the camera but inside the canvas. Impressionists from or near Giverny, France, a countryside artists’ haven, pushed the possibilities of light and shadow through their blurred landscapes of lilyponds and rural village life.
Including works by major artists such as Claude Monet, Theodore Robinson, John Leslie Breck and Pierre Bonnard, all works in the exhibition are investigations into painting’s capacity to convey without mirroring.
The Cuban insurgency put Ché in his beret. The Chinese Cultural Revolution had Mao and his red book. The iPod revolution silhouetted rockers against a psychedelic apocalypse. Revolutions are motored by imagery, and images (even in this decade of digitalism) are best manifested on paper. Posters give slogans a visibility that resonates in the individual and historical consciousness. The Graphic Imperative: International Posters for Peace, Social Justice & the Environment 1965 to 2005 explores the power of the paper by presenting forty years of poster designs that advocate for universal topics such as human rights, justice, sexism, racism, education and environmental and health politics. Coupling text with images, sometimes abrasive, sometimes subtle, the posters remind us of design’s impact on past politics and today’s vision.
