OCTOBER – NOVEMBER EXHIBITIONS
MIDWEST ART / DECEMBER 1976
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At night, the warm red to cool green spectrum of the light that man has created, and how it affects—and indeed metamorphoses—objects, is one area as yet little explored by the color photographer. Ms. Carroll strives to capture the allure of neon, explore the mystery of the night metamorphoses, and evoke apprehension at strange, deep shadows cast by her subjects—plants, palm trees, buildings punctured by doorways, deserted hotel lobbies, and storefronts. However, she carries this off in only three or four prints. Greater discipline in editing the prints for the group is clearly needed because, indeed, many of the photographs are somewhat redundant.

One print in particular, where the metamorphoses are made due to artificial light, transforms everyday objects into unknown, even fearful, shapes. The photograph of tree trunks, where the combination of light and a time exposure makes them glisten and shift like snake-like forms, exemplifies this. Another photograph is of a foyer, where croton plants lit from below cast reddish and greenish shadows on a brick wall and ceiling. A third is a stucco motel façade, lit eerie green, with a passageway illuminated with reddish light. The hazy sorrow of sunsets and the sensation of timelessness—which, anomalously enough, is produced by this fleeting phenomenon—begin to be captured in these few prints. Ms. Carroll demonstrates she is capable of carrying this off, and her high degree of craftsmanship is evident in flawless, consistent printing. The prints tend to be classically composed, stable, and solid, reflecting her fine arts background.

Ms. Carroll, along with many other area photographers, would be advised to look harder and more thoughtfully, and with a more essential eye, so that her viewers could be drawn deeper and stay longer in her worlds of Sunsets After Dark.
In counterpoint to Ms. Carroll’s show was an exhibition, which ended December 5, that featured a cohesive, intense group of black-and-white nude studies by Jane Wenger. Ms. Wenger has obviously considered her material and goal deeply enough to know exactly what she wants, so that each photograph, as well as the entire group, exudes her confident control.

The exhibit began with a few establishing shots of the male nude against a landscape, where the model distorts his body in small ways. In these photographs, the interplay of the landscape with the body is evident: branches grow out of his shoulders in place of his hidden head, and so on. The series quickly becomes more abstract, with the landscape disappearing and the body distorting grossly. The model stands against the sky, as if trying to fly, and finally raises a clenched fist of frustration. Some kind of all-consuming battle begins to take shape as hands wrestle and pull arms across the center of the photo, straining the muscles to the breaking point. These photographs are most powerful when the viewer is unable to pick out the model’s willful distortions of his body or the photographer’s manipulations through the use of wide-angle lenses, cropping, and the phenomena of depth of field and foreshortening.

The struggle continues, now with two bodies wrestling against the confining frame of the photo. The figure breaks away and floats in a blank void, delicate and alone. This series culminates with an embrace—an image that, by itself, might seem clichéd, but as the climax of the group, it is quite moving.

Towards the end of the series, a decline occurs, perhaps heightened by exhaustion on the viewer’s part (there were 42 photos packed in the rather small space). A stocking masks the nude’s face (which had not been revealed previously), nullifying any hope of identifying with him as an individual. He becomes a piece of stone sculpture. Then, a full circle is made: now fragments of the body thrust against the sky, and the figure forms landscapes instead of interacting with them, as in the beginning.

All in all, Ms. Wenger capably presents and skillfully guides the viewer through an experience, forcing them to consider the power, the insignificance, the beauty, the ugliness, and the normally unimaginable abilities of the body. She frees the viewer to enjoy intimate photographs (none larger than 8 x 10 inches, most considerably smaller) that are indeed monumental, set in a classical motif that provides the viewer with a familiar enough format to get to the heart of the experience offered—without having to spend undue energy considering the route. This, nowadays, can be a very welcome change.