DAN'S PAPERS, December 5, 2008 Page 23 www.danshamptons.com
Art Commentary
by Marion Wolberg Weiss
Photography: Laurie Lambrecht at Drawing Room, Mary Ellen Bartley at Sylvesters this viewer to recognize severunworthy. There is a sense of style that pervades the al spots and streets, like the images, one that reinforces Cove Hollow overpass, that the unrealistic technique of were given a very different the artist’s work: an exaggermood by Bartley. ated and mannered approach The photographer also that takes a look at Gerard Drive, a prevails. particularly beautiful stretch Photographs by Mary Ellen in Springs. The large rocks Bartley are as stylized in their between the water and the own way as those by road aren’t rendered with fanLambrecht. The difference is tasy touches — a good decithe style, of course, impression since the subjects themsionistic and fantasy-like in selves are bigger than life. Yet Flash with Level, 1990 nature. Considering that the the power lines on Gerard images were taken through a car windshield, Drive are again enhanced with impressionistic their effect has an added dimension. It’s as aspects, all the more effective for diminishing the though the windshield functioned as another invasion of technology. camera lens, a frame-within-a-frame. The result All in all, Bartley has a penchant for making is entirely impressionistic and fantasy-like, sim- ordinary places extraordinary. We may have ply because Bartley choose to film during foggy, heard this statement before, but it’s good to hear rainy days. it again. The effect is often contradictory: The fog and Lambrecht’s work will be on view at The rain didn’t necessarily make the scene dreary or Drawing Room until Jan. 19, 2009. Bartley’s phobland. Instead, the setting evokes a magic real- tographs will be at Amagansett’s Sylvester & ism of sorts — an environs of mystery with the Co. until Jan. 21, 2008. realization that discovery lay ahead. What’s Cover Art intriguing is that the photographer recreated the This week’s cover, “Pumpkin Sitters,” is by mood she must have felt herself when driving Robert Michaels. The artist can be contacted at: down a lonely, rain soaked road. P.O. Box 566, Bridgehampton, NY 11932. 631Spectators will readily relate to the photo537-8711. robertmichaelsphoto.com. graphs’ subject: Wainscott. What a delight for Laurie Lambrecht
At first glance, we see distinct differences between the world as photographed by Laurie Lambrecht at The Drawing Room at East Hampton, and by Mary Ellen Bartley’s “Viva la Difference” at Sylvester and Co. in Amagansett. Lambrecht’s archival pigment prints (19901992), which feature the inside of Roy Lichtenstein’s studio, seem “authentic” — real drawing materials, comic books and even Lichtenstein sitting on a chair, surveying his canvases. But it soon becomes apparent that the images are creatively arranged by the photographer herself. Simply put, the photographs are not giving us a window into “the creative process of a great artist of our time.” Rather, Lichtenstein is positioned in space to make a good composition; the juxtaposition of materials is created as well. At least it seems that way to this critic. Lambrecht was not exactly a fly on the wall in the artist’s studio. Why, then, did the press release suggest the opposite? In other words, there was nothing “found” about the studio items and their compositions. It looked to me that everything was “arranged.” Other devices added drama and distortion to the supposed studio documentation. Consider the bird’s-eye view of images like “Pencils.” Even the size of the images influenced our perception, including the close-up of “Crying Girls, Reflections.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that Lambrecht’s lack of authentic documentation is
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