Chaos and control are two concepts that people usually view as
separate from one another. But these dichotomies are explored and
reconciled by art Professor Jim Welling and four visiting art
professors in the photography exhibit “Chaos or
Control” in Perloff Gallery, on display through June 7.
The exhibit showcases the works of four visiting professors, all
of which address the relationships between carefully planned out
subjects and manufactured objects that would produce a very
particular image (control), versus a much closer idea of reality by
capturing the disorder brought about by everyday life (chaos). The
title was chosen from a 1963 book on urban planning.
“”˜Chaos or control’ describes the two choices
photographers have today: make set-up photographs or shoot on the
street,” Welling said.
The four exhibiting professors ““ Walead Beshty, Shannon
Ebner, Eve Fowler and Arthur Ou ““ all of whom graduated from
the MFA program at Yale and currently reside in Los Angeles,
explore contemporary photography. Yet each photographer’s
exhibit interprets the relationship between chaos and control in
different ways.
Ou’s portion of the exhibit showcases still-life
photography of cultural elements oriental in nature. His
photography does not place emphasis on the subjective nor is he
limited by it.
“My photography is not really subjective but based on
ideas. The pictures I’m showing are series of life and things
that are manufactured ““ these things resemble China and what
is considered Chinese,” Ou said. “I’m not limited
to subject matter.”
Beshty’s work is comprised of black-and-white photographs
of still life and includes items reminiscent of the early 20th
century such as vintage glasses, a fedora, a flask and a
talcum-powder container. Most of Beshty’s photographs in the
exhibit are inspired by the modernist artistic philosophy of Le
Corbusier, a Swiss architect. The construction of each photograph
emphasizes control, but Beshty tempers his works’ rigidity
with a freer range of images.
Ebner tackles politics and art through landscape, adopting the
concept that art can be used to convey political meanings and ask
questions. For example, “Dead Democracy Letters” is a
piece comprised of six letters made out of a cardboard and wire
installation that spells the word “nausea” in black and
white with a body of water in the background. However, the
complementary piece, a colored photograph of the same image, has
the letters “U,” “S” and “A” in
a blue shade. The controlled presence of letters becomes somewhat
disrupted by their loose and ambiguous arrangement. There’s a
sense of fluidity in her work ““ not only evident in her
photographs of containing rippling water but also in plays on
perspective.
Fowler’s work ““ the only art in the exhibit to focus
on humans as subjects ““ examines the relationship between
people and sexuality, with the subjects seemingly dithering about
the physicality of gender, yet eventually surpassing its
constructed societal functions. The obscure femininity or
masculinity of Fowler’s subjects seem to depict androgynous
beings, which consequently heightens the sense of chaos within her
works.
Chaos and control, ideas that are traditionally independent from
one another, can also be intertwined, as depicted in the exhibit.
Photography naturally lends itself to the exploration of their
intersection, because what the artist sees through the lens of a
camera does not always match what is produced in the negative.
“In photography, there is a part of it when you control
the photography, but the outcome is mostly out of chance,” Ou
said.