DISTANT IMAGES, LOCAL POSITIONS

Curated by Wafaa Bilal
The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, NYC
Exhibition Dates: January 24 – March 8, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday January 24, 6-8pm

Artists: Haseeb Ahmed and Daniel Baird, Hasan Elahi, AnnieLaurie Erickson, Regina Mamou, Mary Mattingly, Trevor Paglen, Travis LeRoy Southworth, Scott Patrick Wiener

What controls geography? Photographs, ultimately, and they do so without neutrality. Our understanding of geography from afar is constructed in a fragmented and subjective way, via photographic imagery. This gives the impression of closeness, but the illusion alienates both the place being seen and the viewer. As a result, we become complacent in the universe of appearances, comforted by the knowledge that what is depicted is now known. But the camera can only show us an apparition, not an actual place. Using technological imagery as their point of departure, the artists here propose unstable positions that question and subvert the photographic construction of visual power.