Onward and Inward

Panning away from the big crowds and clamorous scenes, we still find people in these photographs.

by John Vettese

Curtain, by Keith Sharp, digital color print, 2009, part of the exhibit "Onward '11" at Project Basho.

keithsharp.net

It feels like I'm walking in on the middle of an upheaval.

The scene is a crowded, tin-roof warehouse. It's wild and bright, few clues tell me what's happening, and I'm left to hurriedly deduce where the smoke and sparks are coming from and why the ripped shirtless dudes on BMXs are charging one another.

This vivid black-and-white photograph by Brooklynite Julie Glassberg — Jousting Competition in Richmond, Va. — comes from "Bike Kill," her series documenting the outlaw cyclists of the Black Label Bike Club. It's one of many images in Project Basho's "Onward '11" juried show that land viewers in a busy scene and leave them to construct the narrative.

Dina Litovsky's Russian New Year, Club Mansion finds a group of women in party clothes gathered around one of their companions, watching as she undresses. The reaction of her friends ranges from concern to bemusement, to one woman disinterestedly text messaging. Litovsky's bag is social dynamics and group interactions — this shot comes from her "Untag This Photo" series, which studies empowerment through flaunted sexuality, and the corresponding repercussions in the public sphere (hence the Facebook reference) — but, absent that info, we're left with a scene that demands a lot of pondering and explanation. Is this pre-party preparation? Is this a New Year's party that just took a ribald turn?

"Onward '11" is Project Basho's fourth showcase of emerging artists, this year presenting some 70 pictures by 63 artists. For a group show, it has remarkable cohesion — almost every image looks at people to some degree. Those that don't focus directly on them contain hints that they're nearby. Keith Sharp of Media contributes Curtain, a welcoming image of a pastoral pasture unfolding behind a lush hedge of ivy; a hand reaches in from the right of the frame, pulling the foliage back to look at the field beyond. Untitled (Red Cloud) by Tennessee photographer Rowan James shows the dividing line of a remote road at nighttime, flanked by forest and lit only by the headlights of someone's automobile. (Being so visually evocative of David Lynch's Lost Highway, it strikes me as particularly unsettling, though that may not have been the photographer's intent.)

Three images from Virginie Blachère's series "Public Pools Project" combine the warmth of an evident friendship she finds in the groups of Latino teens hanging out deckside, with the cool of, well, the pool water. ( Richard Feliz is a tight crop of the subject emerging from under the marble blue water, and the refreshing feeling is palpable.) They gather here on this particular scorching summer afternoon, but where did they come from? And where are they going afterward?

In the opposite corner of the gallery, we see more people gathered along water, but in a rural setting instead of an urban one. New York photographer (and sometimes CP shooter) Michael Koehler finds a cluster of people fishing from a roadside canal in Along Bayou Road, St. Bernard, La. Poles are lined up one on top of another into the distance; an old couple stands front and center, each with one hand gripping a fishing net. The man is eating a sandwich with his other hand, keeping an eye on his fishing line; the woman looks up at her companion lovingly. It's not the anarchic world of Glassberg's BMX party, but it clearly has a narrative that begs exploring.

We could explain the thread of people, scenes and stories as a result of the juror effect. The photographs in "Onward '11" were chosen by Larry Fink, whose work studying social groups and loud, vibrant scenes is well-regarded. Conventional wisdom says jurors tend to select work based on their own aesthetic predispositions, and this year's "Onward" is undeniably Fink-esque.

But there's also a refreshing edge of abstraction and metaphor. Panning away from the big crowds and clamorous scenes, we still find people in photographs by Meghan Hickey of Brooklyn and Robin Odland of Warrington. The former's Ordinary Time looks at two pairs of hands, one weathered and sickly, emerging from a hospital robe, the other patient and comforting, in a chair at bedside. The latter's The Good Book crops up on a pair of crossed legs and a lap, reclining in a chair. Placing the idea of narrative physically in these scenes, the subjects are holding books, reading and pondering stories of their own.

(john.vettese@citypaper.net)

"Onward '11," through March 27, free, Project Basho Gallery, 1305 Germantown Ave., 215-238-0928, projectbasho.org.