With untrimmed images carefully and casually mounted to the walls of the Visual Studies Gallery in the Center For the Arts, the Mariev Robitaille & Karen Kirchhoff photography exhibition is no ordinary art installation. It is a marriage of creativity between the two skilled photographers with the talented curating genius of Courtney Dailey.
Last Thursday marked the opening of the gallery, and students were given the opportunity to engage in a long-distance Skype webcam conversation with Dailey in San Francisco, Calif.
Liz Rywelski, graduate assistant for the Department of Visual Studies and former colleague of Dailey, was responsible for the organization of the exhibit to be on display at UB. She was interested in collaborating with Dailey for the gallery and had always admired her strong work ethic and philosophy from their time together at Space 1026, an art gallery in Philadelphia, Pa.
"Through her curatorial vision, Courtney maintains that the meaningfulness of our company, our sound-space, our play-space, and the people we make art and life with are integral to maintaining a work-style philosophy," Rywelski said.
Dailey designed and organized the designated placement of the images within the space of the Visual Studies Gallery from her home in San Francisco, sending a PDF file to Rywelski with her demands.
Though she was deprived of a true physical sense of what the gallery offered, Dailey was successful in grasping the structural format and appropriately utilized the given space to enhance the space-conscious works of Robitaille and Kirchhoff. Sharing a 15-year friendship with the artists, the gallery's arrangement was entirely entrusted to Dailey and her creative intuitions.
This exhibit marks the first time the works of Robitaille and Kirfchhoff are displayed together in a collection. Their images consist of a variety of captured internal spaces with occasional fragments of faceless humans as rare subjects. With the concealment of the individual's identity, observers are able to identify with the image, creating space for imagining the participants in the photographs as people they may know.
The prints themselves are physically large, calling for the viewer's attention and acquaintance. Three series of triptych grayscale images, in particular, cover one of the gallery walls and are towering enough to immerse an observer into the world captured.
Many images are framed with a white border that is typically trimmed off before being displayed. However, these borders intentionally remain on the images, and their unpolished nature is coupled with the casual manner in which they are placed on the walls with plastic rods and nails. A collection of framed images curiously contrasts with the hung pieces as they are placed on the ground beneath them.
The complimentary partnership of the artists and the curator creates a space that is both compelling and confusing for gallery goers. Because the photographs lack a direct narrative and are not supported by strong conceptual contexts, they may come across to observers as being too obvious or snapshot-esque.
"There's nothing overly compelling or shocking," said Jonathan Barcan, a graduate student studying painting. "There are a couple of interesting images."
But while the photography may not necessarily match the taste of some attendees, the images remain compositionally interesting and consciously raw. It is not merely the photographs one must acknowledge, but also the intentional use of space and detail that Dailey has constructed.
"[The exhibit] is really different, a different outlook," said Alisha Balkum, a junior psychology major. "It captures the reality of everyday."
The Visual Studies Gallery B45 is located in the basement area of the CFA and is open to all students. Future exhibits include Rumsey Competition, opening Feb. 24, and an interactive Performance Series on March 24, where anyone is invited to enter the prop-filled exhibit and record a small film using the given materials.
Mariev Robitaille & Karen Kirchhoff will be on display until Thursday. The gallery is open Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m.
E-mail: arts@ubspectrum.com
