NEW ART EXAMINER/ MAY, 1981 

JANE WENGER

Museum of Contemporary Art
237 E. Ontario St., 312/280-2660

Jane Wenger’s best photographs are powerful images underscored by a tension between ambiguous form and sharp-focus detail. Often depicting parts of the body divorced from any reference to scale, they are threatening images, which appear monumental, terrible.

Wenger revels in making the familiar strange. For this reason, she long avoided making photographs of the human face-the the least disguisable part of the body, the most anxious to give way to shared cultural meanings. She chose instead torsos,limbs, rear views of the head; made the photographs from unusual vantage points, in exaggerated or flattened perspective; and then,often cropped the final prints severely to further ambiguous interpretations of the sub.ject. If these prints denied the general, they were replete with detail. Close-range images of the body’s surface in sharp focus, Wenger’s photos picked out the minute-pores and hair, the ripple of muscle or fat.

But, fertile artists continue to explore. So, in 1978-79, Wenger dropped her disinclination and produced the photo series Faces. She succeeded in denying the face while concentrating on it. These closeups of male weight lifters betray little: their faces are icons of strain, masks. She was led-by the photos, however, to a much less successful effort-this recent environmental installation.

Despite a somewhat intriguing concept-an all-black room hung with superenlargements of ten images selected from Faces and accompanied by sounds recorded at the weight-lifting gym where Wenger made her photographs-the installation was weaker than her previous exhibitions. While the drama was increased, the power has drained out through over-exposure. These photos no longer carry a potential threat, they deliver it. Their large size (4′ x 4′ to 4′ x 6′), unevenly articulated hanging, and individual spotlighting focused more attention on a superficial mood than on the images themselves. The surface tension has dropped out-a result of the enlargement process. Whatever detail existed in the 35-mm negatives has been dissolved. And the addition of sound lessened the images’ ambiguity instead of heightening it. Finally, although Wenger prefers the photo series to discrete images, most of her prints will stand alone, but not here. Wenger can be commended for experimenting, but she should be persuaded to explore her strengths.

CHRISTINA WEST