Art: Urban Fusions at Reed Whipple

Hip shooting

By Erika Yowell

Photography's a tough thing in the fine art realm. It's a medium that avails itself to some of the most stunning image effects possible in visual art, many of which are achieved through processing manipulation and other traditionally understood "creative" techniques. Anyone can snap a picture, right? But it takes an artiste to make it special, or so some would argue.

The fact is that Johnny and Jane Tourist on vacation at the Grand Canyon can take some pretty amazing shots. Photography is a democratic medium, after all. On the other side of the spectrum, of course, are the art photographers who have access to training and materials and other tools enabling them to make pictures that many would agree involve the same degree of aptitude and creativity as a painting or sculpture. Sometimes, however, the end result of all this skill and manipulation is not any more pleasing to the eye, or even as interesting, as the simple amateur vacation snapshot.

Susan Bowen's photography show "Urban Fusions" at the Reed Whipple Cultural Center Gallery arose, says the artist's statement, out of a desire to recreate the experience of walking along New York City Streets. She uses a $20 camera called the Holga, apparently a kitschy trend among certain art photographers and, according to an article in the Washington Post, renowned for its "simply awful film advance." With it, Bowen creates horizontally elongated photographs (30 inches wide by 7 inches high) composed of overlapping images taken in fairly quick succession, presumably as the artist strolled through various New York locales. Bowen arrives at the ghostly overlapping effect by advancing the film only partially between shots; given the Holga's reputation in the advancing area, it's unclear whether Bowen arrived upon her technique deliberately or by chance.

There are both color and black-and-white photographs on display in this show. Black and white street scenes such as "Atlantic Antic" and "Times Square" are difficult to read--they're frankly frustrating in their multiplication and layering of imagery. Despite (or because of) the complexity of these pictures, it's hard not to think "jumbled mess" when confronting them.

Much more pleasing and decipherable are some of the color prints. "Chinese New Year" features repetitive glimpses of a crowd populated with revelers dressed in brilliant red and yellow. Brilliant blue is the motif in "8th Avenue Street Fair," which presents great swaths of blue sky and a street scene largely dominated by people clad in various cerulean hues.