Time was, photographers strove to make their works resemble paintings. A whole movement, the Pictorialists, led by Alfred Stieglitz, devoted themselves to the romantic pursuit of soft-focus landscapes and portraits. By the 1960s and '70s, the tables had turned, with painters like Ralph Goings and Audrey Flack churning out photo-realistic paintings with an uncanny resemblance to life. Then emerged a third wave of painters, still ongoing, that began to paint about photography — evoking its visual conventions and its impact on our ideas about memory and experience beyond the confines of strict realism; think Gerhard Richter or Eberhard Havekost, whose work was recently showcased at the Tampa Museum of Art.
Steve McClure, a University of South Florida grad now taking a stab at life and success as a working artist in New York City, belongs to that third wave of post-photographic painting. His dream-like tableaus bear unmistakable evidence of the paintbrush and ink's liquidity; no doubt they possess a slightly abstracted elusiveness worthy of the accolade "painterly." Yet, references to photography — but, emphatically, not the attempt to replicate or simulate it — are at the core of McClure's images.
More than 20 of his paintings — about a half-dozen larger works and an assortment of his smaller snapshot-size paintings — go on display at Bleu Acier this weekend. Recurring figures, objects and settings that McClure lifts from a mix of vintage photographs and real-life encounters are recombined into slightly surreal scenes that fall somewhere between recollection and hallucination. Photo-realism be damned — McClure's elaborate constructions suggest that the inscrutable interactions of image with memory and mental association create an experience that is more "real" than reality itself.
His paper space becomes a stage where the iconic — and therefore vaguely familiar — and the uncanny collide. Farm Security Administration photographs of Depression-era dancehalls have served as the inspiration for his larger works. The unmistakable glare of the camera flash — translated into ink by McClure — shines on swirling gals and handsome beaus frozen in time. Unfinished and abstracted faces contribute to a sense of mystery; juxtaposed and sometimes bleeding through the dancing bodies, objects from other time periods add a dimension of pastiche. Turning up in smaller works are the occasional Victorian gentleman, headless Greek and Roman statues, and even a group of hijab-clad women.
New York's life-as-pastiche pandemonium has influenced his work, McClure admits. (He spied the women in Muslim dress playing Frisbee in New York's Prospect Park.) Where else — in the U.S., at least — do several centuries' worth of architecture co-exist with a cast of characters in all varieties of garb?
Life in the Northeast has been good to him: Following a printmaking residency at the Lower East Side Printshop, he took up residency at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass., where he'll return for another year next month. After that, how fast his star will rise is anybody's guess, but go no further than this exhibit for proof of his impressive talent.
Sketchbook
Beginning this week, I'll top off the visual arts column with a short item or two on other not-to-be missed happenings and news in the local arts scene. There's just too much going on in the Bay area not to.
One year after relocating to downtown Tampa, the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts is on the move again — to a much larger space within the same building. The move is by design: When FMoPA (known as the Tampa Gallery of Photographic Arts from 2001 until last year) took the gamble of securing a permanent space in Bank of America Plaza after floating between a series of donated spaces in Hyde Park, the museum's board of directors deliberately opted for a short lease in case they needed to back out later.
Now, rather than scaling down, FMoPA is piling its chips even higher on the proverbial roulette table. The acquisition of 500 new members since its move downtown, as well as seed money for a small endowment with the Community Foundation, has the museum feeling stable enough to take another gamble. Its new, 3,000-square-foot space will triple the size of FMoPA, allowing for bigger exhibitions (with more breathing room for art works) and the addition of a library, gift shop and classroom.
On Tuesday, a pair of Cuba-themed exhibits open in the new galleries, with photographic works by Florida naturalist Clyde Butcher, Miami artist Maria Martinez-Cañas and Tampa-based David Audet on view.
The best news is that visiting the museum will continue to be free — so it goes without saying that if you want FMoPA to stick around, becoming a member is a necessity. Later this month, it will launch a fundraising event designed to become an annual tradition: Photo Mojo! 2007, a party and auction benefiting the museum and the Legacy Institute for Nature & Culture (LINC) at Neiman Marcus at International Plaza on Sept. 27.
The theme of this year's auction is Florida nature photography, with images from Clyde Butcher, Connie Bransilver, John Moran, LINC founder Carlton Ward Jr., Eric Zamora and others up for grabs.
And if Florida landscape photography floats your boat, consider stopping by Clayton Galleries on Friday night — before or after you visit Bleu Acier. From 7-9 p.m., the gallery shows off the latest addition to its stable of artists: New York photographer Benjamin Dimmitt (a member of the family that owns several Bay area car dealerships). Experimenting with infrared film and exposure times, Dimmitt creates unusual and striking visions of the landscape we all know and love.
This article appears in Sep 12-18, 2007.