In Review’s 10 photographers seem deeply immersed in thoughts about the fragility of the human condition and the slipperiness of reality. The photographers are also into taxonomies – groups of barns, humans, animals, buildings, teenagers and more. The show, at Gallery 339, is full of quirky and sometimes hallucinatory imagery.
![leshkoembdenGoose Isa Leshko Embden Goose, Age 28, II, 2008 Archival Inkjet Print 9 x 9 inches; Edition of 15; $600 - $2500](https://www.theartblog.org/wp-content/uploaded/leshkoembdenGoose.jpg)
The influence of August Sander (1876-1964) grows yearly as photographers continue to explore and classify the world by “types.” Phillip Toledano’s portraits of men and women who have had significant levels of cosmetic surgery read like a World Book entry on artificial beauty. The C-prints showcase each sitter in dramatic light isolated in a deep black background. Ashley, Justin, Steve and others, dignified and unsmiling, most resemble the subjects of Edward S. Curtis‘s forlorn and iconic photos of Native Americans in the Old West.
![toledanoangel2 Phillip Toledano Angel, 2009 Digital C-Print 40 x 30 inches; Edition of 6; Starting at $2750
60 x 50 inches; Edition of 3; Starting at $4500](https://www.theartblog.org/wp-content/uploaded/toledanoangel2.jpg)
Also taxonomic, Isa Leshko’s prints of aging farm animals are a reminder of the inevitability of senescence and death. Leshko’s black-and-white prints offer a different kind of beauty than that of most animal art, which tends to revel in the vitality of the natural. It’s impossible not to feel empathy for 11-year-old Kelly, an Irish Wolfhound who looks arthritic and perhaps blind, or Pumpkin, the beautiful horse whose ripe old age of 28 stirs up thoughts of death. As stand-ins for aging humans, these animals are a speed bump in a show that otherwise moves along straightforwardly.
![changkimindex_01_1 Chang Kim, chromogenic prints, from South Korea](https://www.theartblog.org/wp-content/uploaded/changkimindex_01_1.jpg)
Chang Kim’s chromogenic prints of buildings plastered with brightly colored advertising signs are big, bold and exotic. The shots, taken in South Korea, are of a world in which advertising has become decor, invading every inch of public space. Kim’s photos are a shock to a Western eye, with buildings resembling gigantic mahjong tile arrangements soaring into the air.
![benaimAyalonHighway2_LG Gabriel Benaim Ayalon Highway #2, 2008 Gelatin Silver Contact Print 8x10" ed of 10. $900-1500](https://www.theartblog.org/wp-content/uploaded/benaimAyalonHighway2_LG.jpg)
Gabriel Benaim’s gelatin silver prints of a depopulated Tel Aviv, on the other hand, are generic views of the built environment that have almost no emotional impact. Benaim’s shots of the curve of a highway with no cars and a beach with no people are almost chilling in their non-specificity and lack of affect. You want to doubt the generic city, yet you can’t. It’s familiar even if you haven’t been there.
![joellederer 200804211518 Joel Lederer, 200804211518, 2009, Archival Pigment Print](https://www.theartblog.org/wp-content/uploaded/joellederer-200804211518.jpg)
Joel Lederer’s and Kyohei Abe’s digital prints both deal with the longing for a better reality. Lederer’s imagined virtual landscapes are candy-colored, Shangri-La impossibilities. There’s nothing forlorn about the natural scenes of woods and water, but in their suggestion of Candyland perfection, they are a knowing cry that something is wrong. Kyohei Abe’s inkjet prints of small game pieces set in voids of white space likewise suggest childhood and lost innocence.
It’s a solid show, and John Chervinsky’s science-referencing black-and-whites, Hannah Price’s teen portraits, Peter Ainsworth’s concrete-as-skin color prints and Dustin Ream’s tumble-down barns also deserve mention.
Gallery 339’s Martin McNamara organized In Review after seeing the artists’ works in open-call “portfolio reviews,” a nonstandard way of organizing a show in a commercial gallery (it’s more typical of juried shows in alternative galleries). But the professional quality of the work and the universal themes make this “up from the masses” show a winner.
In Review, Through Sept. 4. Gallery 339 339 S. 21st St. 215.731.1530