Anonymity and ordinariness. Death and angst. These qualities hang over the latest exhibition at the Center for Visual Art like a faint yet inescapable fog.
This ambitious presentation, which continues through April 30, brings together photographs and video works by three nationally known photographers — Slater Bradley, Sally Mann and Nigel Poor.
Though very different in approach, these existentialist images all confront the central reality of existence — that death is an inevitable part of life.
But rather than focus on the act of dying, these photographers are more interested in what is left afterward, the specterlike traces of a life that was.
Certainly, this show will not suit every taste. It is unsettling, perhaps even haunting at times, but never dreary or grim. The tone is meditative and quiet, hence its apt title, “still.”
A sign at the center’s front desk warns visitors of graphic imagery, a reference to four untitled 31-by-39-inch photographs of decaying human bodies by Mann, who sparked controversy in the 1990s with a group of frank, nude views of her children.
These images, which were taken at a forensic-study site, are part of a series created for her much-praised 2003 book, “What Remains,” a visual rumination on death and regeneration. It also included views of Civil War battlefields, four of which are also on view.
Some people will no doubt be offended or repulsed by Mann’s four photographs of bodies, but I think she approaches the subject with dignity and respect. I would even argue that, in their way, the images are movingly beautiful.
Adopting 19th-century methods, all the photos in “What Remains” were taken with a 100-year-old camera and printed using the wet- collodian process. Like vestiges of another time, the resulting images appear shadowy, weathered and imprecise.
Seeing ghosts
Two video works by Bradley, who has gained international attention while still in his early 20s, also show an interest in visual inexactitude, but he achieves it not through studied craftsmanship but by using deliberately crude and amateurish techniques.
Particularly powerful is a short piece titled “Ghost,” which simulates the grainy, jumpy footage produced by surveillance cameras. In this case, it traces the movement of a faceless, yes, ghostly figure — everyone and no one at the same time — through what is perhaps an airport.
Much of Bradley’s work has revolved around the notion of doppelgänger. That term usually refers to a kind of spectral double of a living person, but he reverses the idea, creating living doubles of deceased rock musicians.
In his video work “Factory Archives” (2001-04), from his “Doppelganger Trilogy,” Bradley creates an imaginary restaging of a performance by Ian Curtis, the lead singer of the post-punk band Joy Division, making it look like an actual, hazy video shot at a concert.
This piece, like much of the artist’s work, deals with fascinating intersections of reality and memory and such au courant issues as celebrity voyeurism and includes an autobiographical element, since Bradley was a fan of these musicians.
His doppelgänger imagery extends into his photographs as well, including “I Hate Myself and Want to Die” (2003- 04), an imagined 80-by-64- inch portrait of Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana, who infamously committed suicide in 1994.
Poor deals with death of a different kind — that of flies. In “287 Flies” (2007-08), one of two installations on view, he has mounted 287 images of dead flies on plexiglass circles, each 1 to 2 1/2 inches in diameter, and arranged them in an expansive wall array.
We cannot run away from our mortality and that of every living thing around us, but these three artists invite us to ponder it — in stillness.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost
“Still”
Photography. The Center for Visual Art, 1734 Wazee St. An exhibition of photography by nationally known artists Slater Bradley, Sally Mann and Nigel Poor. Through April 30. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Free. 303-294-5207 or .
