Pictorialist photography takes a sharp turn from its traditional dreamy, pastoral, laid-back soft-focus sensibility and goes urban and aggro, while retaining its trademark blur, in the images of the shooters in this group show. Whether Bill Sosin decides to title one of his glaring color abstractions “Blue Man” or “Emerald Pool,” it will have the same effect as his aptly named “Stop Lights,” in which we see blinding circles of light on dark backgrounds through a watery mist, bringing us back to the experience of navigating a car through blazing city lights at night in a thick rain when we are arguably DWI. Mark Messerly creates the same kind of impact of environmental assault in his wide-angle black-and-white photos of massive urban structures shot from below that seem to ripple as they overpower us in an exercise that makes mammoth glass and steel come to monstrous life. (Michael Weinstein)
RECOMMENDED
