Mariah Robertson, Chaos Power Center @ 11R

I like Walead Beshty’s large colorful photograms. They are nice to look at, and when he was first doing them, they were a provocative conceptual gesture geared towards the on-again, off-again relationship photography has with the avant-garde. But I am not sure how many attractive looking photograms I need to see. Robertson’s photograms are large and attractive. I have nothing against them, short of their not being as much fun to look at as abstract painting. The stars of the show are a collection of small, dark, alt-process prints of naked men in the corner of the gallery. These pictures of men give the large attractive photograms a reason to exist that is more than decorative. The photograms next to the nudes, take on a vibrant celebratory sexuality, as if they are radiating off the otherwise dark secretive little prints of naked men. I have reached my limit of work that isn’t clearly about something, and the inclusion of the naked men certainly gives a show of photograms a little more meaning.

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11R (195 Chrystie St., Btw. Stanton & Rivington Sts.)