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CHICAGO TRIBUNE, March 25, 1988.
Photography
Exhibit views men as they see themselves.
Review by Larry Thall
Rare is the male photographer who photographs the female nude with enough
insight and sensitivity to transcend the purely physical form-the nude either
as sex object or art object. Even when the photographer juxtaposes his
model against the graininess of sand dunes or the roughness of tree bark,
it's female flesh that's the heart and soul of the subject matter.
Three male photographers have turned their cameras on their own gender
in the exhibition "Men on Men. . . a look at male sexuality,"
on view at the Catherine Edelman Gallery.
If this show can be construed as being typical of the manner in which
men photograph themselves, then it must be concluded that males extend to
their view of their own sexuality a serious and three-dimensional quality
not often extended by male photographers to women.
Although an ample amount of male epidermis is evident in the photographs
by Duane Michals, John Reuter and Joe Ziolkowski, each artist brings to
his work psychological or social issues that are at least as essential to
the subject matter as the male form.
Michals is not hesitant to reveal his subjects' vulnerability. Fear,
regret, desire, love, separation and death are recurrent themes in the artist's
work, which has been widely exhibited and published since the early 1960s.
"All things mell in the mind. A sleight of hand. A trick of time.
And even our great love will fade. Soon we'll be strangers in the grave
. . .," Michals writes in the border of a photograph showing a well-built
young man holding a skull in the palm of his hand. All seven of Michal's
prints in the show are from "The Nature of Desire" (Twelvetrees
Press, $40). They incorporate long-hand text, a technique Michals adopted
in the early 1970s, after deciding that the visual image alone was inadequate
to express the complicated inner feelings he sought to explore.
A story-teller by nature, Michals, 56, is best-known for his photographic
sequences.
Chicago-born photographer Reuter, 35, combines images of himself and
his wife to create androgynous figures, which he then superimposes onto
Renaissance paintings.
By incorporating a femine element into his view of male sexuality, Retuer
makes a statement about today's changing gender roles, but he also seeks
to bring out into the open the sexual tension that he thinks is implicit
in many paintings of that period.
His images, which look rather painterly, are the result of an interesting
and complicated process. The artist's androgynous figures are put on an
acetate overlay, which he then places over a photographic reproduction of
a painting. The composite is re-photographed onto either 4-by-5 or 8-by-10
transparency film, which is then back lit and re-photographed onto 20-by-24
instant Polacolor film. Instead of letting the instant print material have
its normal 60- to 75-second development, Reuter peels the negative away
after only 15 seconds. He then transfers the negative to a watercolor paper
and lets the dyes soak in. After several minutes, he peels the negative
away and works on the rough areas with paint and graphite.
"The work is an outgrowth of my SX-70 work 10 years ago, when I
would take them apart from behind and paint on them," Reuter says.
"I've always had a very strong interest in combining photography and
painting, although I've suffered over the years because I wouldn't stick
to one medium or the other. For the last three years I've been painting,
but I still do some transfer work."
Today, Reuter lives in New York and is the director of Polaroid's 20x24
Studio.
In the exhibition's statement, Ziolkowski describes his imagery, which
is the most explicit in the show, not as fantasies, but as an articulation
of his feelings and experiences.
In "Beyond Boundaries #3" two male figures embrace while floating
in a white space. Attached to each of the ankles is a leather strap, extending
down to the bottom of the frame.
"Obviously there's affection between the two," Ziolkowski says,
"but society is pulling them down. The feelings aren't as flowing
as they could be."
Born in 1960, Ziolkowski received a master of fine arts degree from the
School of the Art Institute in 1987.
"While all three artists have unique approaches and techniques,
they uncannily compliment each other's work, particularly around the issues
of male sexuality," Catherine Edelman, the gallery's director says.
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