If Katherine Wolkoff is trying to do as little as possible
in a photograph and still make sense, as in her show at Sasha Wolf, then
Michele Abeles is doing as much as she can in a picture before it completely
implodes. I have for a long time been so-so on Abeles’s work. In PS1’s greater
NY show, I was indifferent to her random pairings of pictures that owed way too
much to Roe Ethridge for my liking. I had a similar reaction to her recent over-worked
nudes / still life studies from MoMA’s New Photography show that felt like
Daniel Gordon but less challenging while wallowing in a certain “is this a real
space or is it photoshop?” shtick. But despite my lack of enthusiasm, the work
stayed with me and always felt on some level challenging and worth reckoning
with.
I think in English for
Secretaries her work really starts to pay off. The pictures have become
so over-worked that they devolve into abstraction, and at last, as a viewer it has
become much easier for a viewer to address her work as collage rather than photography
(in the narrower sense). This shift allows for a change of expectation in her
work, where color choices seem more important than a need to make sense seem. Abeles’s
rather garish teal and pink color palate brings to mind an unfortunate
remodeling job in early 80’s Miami and ties the work together better than the
scraps of recognizable subject matter in the MoMA show: a man’s torso,
silhouettes of palm trees and chains. For my money, she has done what
photography has been unable to do for the last 100 plus years, which is, make compelling
photo abstractions. Of course, one can harp on the photo vs. collage aspect of
the work, but come on, grow up already. The most representational images were a
slightly collaged picture with a woman out of a high-end, rap-themed fashion
shoot and a cat on an afghan rug in a very green yard. Both images suggest a
certain hipness, where people who walk out of American Apparel ads to go
swimming at Rockaway Beach and then go home to organically farm their backyards
with their cats and occasionally make very attractive abstract photographs.
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